Tega okusa še niste poskusili

Maja Šorlin näytelmä on lumoava tutkielma vallasta ja etuoikeuksista. Järkyttävän ajankohtainen teos kertoo laajasta yhteiskunnallisesta romahduksesta hyvin intiimin tarinan kautta. Se muistuttaa kouriintuntuvasti, miten tasa-arvoa ja oikeudenmukaisuutta on puolustettava väsymättä.

Elli Salo

Synopsis

“Maku, jota et ole kokeillut ennen”

Näytelmä alkaa manifestilla modernista korkeakoulutuksesta, joka vaatii opintojen saavutettavuutta kaikille ja työllistymismahdollisuuksia valmistuneille. Hallitus aikoo luovuttaa valtion ylläpitämät tiedekunnat yksityiselle yliopistolle, joka muuttaisi opetuksen maksulliseksi ja lisäisi henkilökunnan opetustehtäviä ja heikentäisi työolosuhteita.

Humanististen ja yhteiskuntatieteellisten tiedekuntien opiskelijat protestoivat, koska he kokevat tulleensa laiminlyödyiksi. He pitävät koulutusta perusoikeutena, joka on kaikille saavutettavissa. Opiskelijat vastustavat suunnitelmia yksityistää ja kaupallistaa yliopistokoulutusta. Tiedekunnan dekaani hiljentää protestit keinoja kaihtamatta ja painostaa myös professoreita, jotka ovat eri mieltä hänen kanssaan asettuessaan yksityistämisaikeita vastaan.

Näytelmä seuraa tilannetta kahden nuoren apulaisprofessorin Doroteja Luna Kovačin ja Ivona Kalischin kautta. Molempien yksityiselämässä tapahtuu dramaattisia asioita. Kalisch tulee pitkäaikaisen kumppaninsa hylkäämäksi ja Kovačia syytetään seksuaalisesta häirinnästä. Syytökset ovat epämääräisiä, eivätkä ne ole uhrin esittämiä, vaan tulevat kolmannelta osapuolelta.

Näytelmä ei vähättele seksuaalista häirintää puhumalla epämääräisistä syytöksistä, vaan pikemminkin rakentaa sen varaan. Mitä tapahtuu, kun intohimo pedagogina saattaa johtaa ylilyönneiltä näyttäviin tilanteisiin, jotka joku toinen voi valjastaa omiin tarkoitusperiinsä mustamaalaamalla taitavan opettajan?

Näytelmässä julkisen koulutuksen alasajoa koskeva yhteiskunnallinen konteksti kietoutuu yksilön henkilökohtaisten peruskysymysten kanssa – mitä pitää kestää parisuhteessa, mitä rakkaus on, mitä merkitsee kuuluminen johonkin, mitä perhe merkitsee. Vaikuttavatko omassa elämässä tapahtuneet vastoinkäymiset ja menetykset yhteiskunnalliseen aktivismiin?

Maja Šorlin taitavasti kirjoitettu, nykykielellä kirjoitettu dialogi tuottaa täysipainoiset näytelmähahmot. Näytelmä tavoittaa laajemman yhteiskunnallisen kontekstin maailmassa murroksen partaalla ja näyttää, miten kaikki resonoi yksittäisten ihmisten elämänkohtaloissa.

Vuosi	2023
Alkukieli	slovakki
Käännökset	englanti
Tuotannot	Cejlen kaupunginteatteri (kantaesitys 20.5.2023)
Oikeudet	Tiedustelut: TINFO, tinfo@tinfo.fi
Genre	Draama
Roolien määrä	6 N 5 M

Ote näytelmästä

Maja Šorli

A Taste You Haven’t Tried Before

DRAMATIS PERSONAE in the selected scene:

DEAN Metoda (Meta) PRIESTER, full professor
Rafael BLAŽIN, full professor
IVONA (Iva) Kalisch, assistant professor, mid-30s

DOROTEJA Luna Kovač, associate professor, early 30s

MALE COLLEAGUE, associate professor

FEMALE COLLEAGUE, assistant professor

Two administrative workers and three colleagues from Scene One

…

SCENE ONE

An emergency department meeting.

Sitting around the oval table in the conference room are IVONA, DOROTEJA, BLAŽIN, FEMALE COLLEAGUE and MALE COLLEAGUE. Two ADMINISTRATORS (of any gender) bring in a new painting to hang. DEAN PRIESTER enters.

DEAN PRIESTER:
On that wall over there. The nail is ready. (To the colleagues around the table.) Good morning, hello. (Everybody nods.) We will start immediately. Not everyone is here, is that correct? (The Administrative workers leave the conference room.) Thank you very much.

IVONA:
Ooh, fresh art. Nice.

BLAŽIN:
Hmmm. Is this something more modern?

DEAN PRIESTER:
The 21st century, yes. We have this on loan for a year from the MSMA.

IVONA:
The MSMA?

Three more colleagues enter. The greetings are reserved but polite. The three colleagues are here so that the department has at least nine people employed. If this were a film or a television series, this would not be a problem, but in theatre, this means extra people who only appear in Scene One. These are people who are silent, bodies that take up space, characters we don’t notice. But they are there.

BLAŽIN:
The Museum of Slovenian Modern Art.

IVONA:
I was a bit shocked by the acronym.

DEAN PRIESTER:
Everybody is here now, correct? I called today’s emergency meeting because of the recent events here at the school, particularly in your department. Your department chair is, as you know, on a work-related trip, but I did speak to her yesterday. (A brief silence.) Well, this is unacceptable. (She looks at her colleagues and waits for a potential reaction, a comment. They remain silent.) You all know that there is less money allocated for public education. Far too little money. Today, several other people were supposed to be sitting here. People who teach here but could not come because they have obligations elsewhere as we cannot employ them full-time. It is unacceptable that you aggravate this already difficult situation further with student revolts!

She looks at her colleagues. IVONA wants to say something but changes her mind.

DEAN PRIESTER:
Did you want to say something?

IVONA:
I don’t know, no. Perhaps. I'm wondering what the purpose of today’s meeting is.

DEAN PRIESTER:
The purpose is to discuss who is responsible for this situation, how it will not happen again, and how we can prevent similar occurrences in the future. Dr Kovač, what are your thoughts on these events?

DOROTEJA:
So, we’re supposed to be discussing today how to prevent future student activities?

IVONA:
We could organise a week-long symposium on the question of responsibility.

BLAŽIN:
The one most responsible is this government. Who else? And we ourselves could have demanded better working conditions more clearly and emphasised the importance of higher education for the country.

IVONA:
Ah, it’s hard to expect anything sensible from this government.

DEAN PRIESTER:
Enough, colleagues. Today’s meeting is not about the situation in the country but about your role as an educator and your responsibilities to your students on the one side and the college on the other.

BLAŽIN:
What do you mean by that, Dean Priester?

DOROTEJA:
Why are these two opposing sides?

DEAN PRIESTER:
These are not opposing sides, dear colleague. Your duty as educators is to be good teachers and convey knowledge to the students. Is that not right? Your other work obligation is to care for the reputation of this college and its smooth operation and be competent and responsible college educators.

DOROTEJA:
And if students protest because of the privatisation of education, what has that do with us? With our responsibilities?

DEAN PRIESTER:
The privatisation of education … Are they really protesting because of the privatisation of education?

DOROTEJA:
Yes, what else would it be?

DEAN PRIESTER:
Europe Now writes they are protesting because of the terrible situation inside this college.

BLAŽIN:
Ah, Europe ...

DEAN PRIESTER: (takes a newspaper from her bag and reads)
“The students at the School of Applied Humanities and Social Sciences are protesting because Free University treats them like shit.” That is what it says!

DOROTEJA:
It says other things, too, though. That Free University wants to get rid of the students and sell them to a private university.

DEAN PRIESTER:
But that is also not true.

DOROTEJA:
Well, it’s partly true.

DEAN PRIESTER:
They want to get rid of us, in the first place, the professors, or you, your department and some other departments they believe cost too much.

DOROTEJA:
And it is right that someone protests against such mentality!

DEAN PRIESTER:
Protesting against such mentality. Exactly! Such protests are pointless and harmful. Against whom exactly were they protesting? Because if we read these naïve statements and, even more, the senseless reporting from the media, students object to private universities, more precisely, to Ivan Cankar University. Claiming that private universities are ideologically … That students at public universities are well taken care of by the state as it is, blah, blah. And it all benefits the government that will decide our fate.

DOROTEJA:

What’s naïve about this? Our college belongs to a state university, and now we are to be sold, I’m sorry, gifted to a private university where students will have to pay for the same things, and we’ll probably have to work three times as much under worse conditions!

DEAN PRIESTER:
So, were you the one who filled the students’ heads with this nonsense?

DOROTEJA:
What nonsense?

DEAN PRIESTER:
The one about which you are blathering right now.

DOROTEJA: (calms down and soberly states)
In my opinion, these are cogent standpoints that may save us from incorrigible consequences.

Even protagonists must occasionally resort to platitudes to defend themselves.

***
Lue koko otteen

Arvostelut

"The characters, in front of the backdrop of transformation of the institutions, also experience personal and sentimental problems. They are subjected to the unclear accusations of overstepping the line between passionate teaching and harassing students. A Taste You Haven’t Tried Before uses education system to reveal numerous conflicting social forces; it is aware that each point can also be a breaking point and that a fragile and long strived-for balance in the time of unbridled neoliberal grabs is hard to maintain."

From the jury explanation of the Grum Award for Best New Slovenian play

"Increased sensitivity to the abuse of power, crossing the boundaries between the pedagogical process and impermissible interference in the intimate areas of students, proves to be unfounded in the presented case. Additionally, the author destigmatizes the lesbian relationship between the female professors. This destigmatization is also successful in Nina Šorak's direction, as she does not question this relationship during the stage action but rather follows it in its naturalness."

Vilma Štritof, RA SLOVENIJA 3 (radio review), May 21, 2023

"The hierarchy of characters is one of the central frameworks that triggers the intensification of situations: the dean, three professors and their (nameless) colleague, the future rector of the new university, and a student with her partner, one of the professors, form multiple narrative images. Each of them creates its own set of problems. Unraveling multiple twists and conflicts is also the most enigmatic part of this otherwise dialogically refined award-winning text. The staging addresses this by juxtaposing simultaneous scenes, whose focus is subtly indicated by lighting changes and an almost melancholic video projection that underscores the crumbling emotional states of the protagonists."

Kaja Novosel, Sigledal (online platform), May 23, 2023

"In an American context, literary works set in a university environment have their own niche or even their own genre. In our environment, we don't have enough of them. Maja Šorli boldly stepped into this dedicated territory with her award-winning drama."

Petra Vidali, Večer (daily newspaper), May 26, 2023

Maja Šorli

Maja Šorli on slovenialainen dramaturgi, teatterintutkija ja psykologi. Vuonna 2003 psykologiksi valmistunut Šorli väitteli tohtoriksi Ljubljanan yliopiston teatteri- ja elokuva-akatemiasta vuonna 2011. Hän on julkaissut teoksen slovenialaisesta postdramaattisesta teatterista ja näytelmäteksteistä 1990-luvulla (Slovenska postdramska pomlad, 2014). Hän myös työskenteli Royal Central School of Speech and Drama University of Londonin toteuttamassa yleisötutkimusprojektissa.

Maja Šorli oli näytelmälaboratorioita, slovenialaisen teatterin kansainvälistymishankkeita 2000-luvun alkuvuosikymmeninä toteuttaneen PreGlej -ryhmittymän jäsen. Vuosina 2015–2019 hän toimi teatteritutkimusta julkaisevan Amfiteater-lehden päätoimittajana.

Nykyään Šorli työskentelee opinto-ohjaajana ja opettajana Ljubljanan esittävän taiteen lukiossa. Vuonna 2021 hänen ensimmäinen näytelmänsä Tega okusa še niste poskusili (A Taste You Haven't Tried Before, englanniksi kääntänyt Barbara Skubic) voitti näytelmäkirjailija Slavko Grumin nimeä kantavan palkinnon parhaasta uudesta slovenialaisesta näytelmästä.