In 1982 Vito Taufer directed the play Class Enemy based on Nigel Williams’ text at the Slovenian Youth Theater. The cult play was remembered as unique in the performer’s energy, the naturalist violence and the realistic portrayal of the wantonness of a young generation without perspective. In the time of rotting socialism, the concepts of brotherhood and unity are slowly but irrevocably erased from social consciousness in order to make room for heroic individualism.
Thirty years later, Borut Šeparović creates a re-/de-/construction of the play CLASS ENEMY at a time when it is no longer possible to unequivocally point a finger at a class enemy. It infuses every pore of modern society, and its activity is seen in the lack of solidarity, in living according to harsh cannons of neoliberal capitalism in which everyone is left to their own devices, and money becomes the only legitimate social obsession. On a school board which also served as a projection surface for the presentation of a video fragment from the original 1980s play, the actor writes the words "Youth – Force of Society", a syntagmatic term which resonates as unconvincing and fake from today’s perspective. The entire classroom inventory on the stage becomes the object of the actors’ expression of rage, destroying everything within reach with metal rods. This play touches upon the issue of a possible revolution and the effects of today’s protesting turmoil. The actors denounce the mechanisms of contemporary society in the framework of a neoliberal order, with a long and exhaustive list of questions, while pointing fingers at the audience members in order to raise awareness on the individual responsibility of each person. The re-/de-/construction of CLASS ENEMY is an attempt to stratify today’s social image, both Slovenian and global, in a layered manner and carrying multiple meanings.
