MandićCircus (raw)
Marko Mandić • Samo Kutin • Bojan Jablanovec
Hurdy-gurdy and a body that drills in concrete
(Bojan Jablanovec)
MandićCircus (raw) is the third derivative of the performance MandićCircus, which was first performed on the main stage of the Ljubljana Drama in 2022; shortly afterwards, a second derivative MandićCircus (dressed) was created for the stage of the Mala Drama of the Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubljana.
The raw Circus draws its performing strategy from the Corona period, when Mark and I were browsing through his roles and wondering what drives this Mandić to inhabit someone else so insatiably. Is he looking for himself in someone else? No. He is not looking for anything, he is not naive. He knows that only something third can be born out of this. That is what he wants to be born as “a third body that is neither himself nor his role” (Blaž Lukan, The Third Body). “The air between us is like concrete”, says Heiner Müller (MandićCircus, role no. 90). Mandić’s third body is a drill that bores into this concrete at top speed, overheating, squeaking and crunching.
When we first met Kutin during the preparations for Circus, and his hurdy-gurdy resonated through the sound membranes, it was as if the heavens had opened. At times I felt as if Mandić had been lifted up into the clouds and the next moment mercilessly shaken down to the concrete. But Marko stubbornly picked up his bones in the SNG Drama study and defiantly threw them into Kutin’s hurdy-gurdy. And Kutin crushed them to dust without hesitation, and Mandić kept rising from his ashes. And he got louder and louder, and he drilled his third body more and more violently. It was as if he were driven by a small crank between Kutin’s fingers, turning the spindle of the instrument. At one point I shouted: ‘Stop. It’s cool. This works. Thank you, Samo. Kutin smiled and said in a sing-song voice: “Yeah, okay, but was I too loud?” Marko looked at me half mad and said breathlessly, “How was it? I enjoyed it.”
Yes, Kutin was too loud, and yes, that’s exactly what was great, that between me and Mandić’s third body there was Kutin’s wall of sound in addition to the invisible concrete. And that everything that could no longer be heard started to appear in front of my eyes with all its force. Then we packed it all up and took it to the big stage of the SNG Drama. Now we have unpacked the Circus again and returned it to its raw state – no set, no costume design, no lighting effects – and to let Mandić to drill in his own sweat and urine into that wall from beginning to the end.








MandićCircus (raw)
2025 • Derivative of the performance MandićCircus
Concert performance • 105 min
Conceived and devised — Bojan Jablanovec, Marko Mandić
Text — The performance text includes text fragments from 91 of Mandić’s acting creations from 1996 to 2021 and follows the chronology of their creation. Selected and edited by Bojan Jablanovec and Marko Mandić
Performers — Marko Mandić, Samo Kutin (hurdy-gurdy)
Direction — Bojan Jablanovec
Producer — Špela Trošt
Production — Via Negativa, SNG Drama Ljubljana