Casimir and Caroline

Original title Kasimir und Karoline (1932)

Premiere 19. 9. 2024, Ljubljana City Theatre

Running time 1 hour 45 minutes, with intermission.

Post-performance dicussion with the artists.

Director Nina Rajić Kranjac

Translator Borut Trekman

Dramaturg Tibor Hrs Pandur

Set designer Urša Vidic

Costume designer Marina Sremac

Composer Branko Rožman

Assistant director Jaka Smerkolj Simoneti

Language consultant Martin Vrtačnik

Lighting designer Andrej Koležnik

Sound designer Sašo Dragaš

Assistant dramaturg Tilen Oblak

Assistant costume designer Nina Čehovin

Cast

Primož Pirnat, Jana Zupančič, Karin Komljanec, Gregor Gruden, Matej Puc, Mojca Funkl, Tanja Dimitrievska, Jernej Gašperin, Bernarda Oman, Lotos Vincenc Šparovec, Uroš Smolej, Jure Rajšp as guest, Gaber K. Trseglav, Lena Hribar Škrlec, Diana Kolenc as guest

Only a year before Hitler’s political ascent, the writer and playwright Ödön von Horváth wrote his play Casimir and Caroline (1932). The disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, inflation and the post-World War I economic crisis are only the most important historical circumstances – the main reason that National Socialism gained power in Germany and that political violence and the mass extermination of political opponents became a legalised constant. Because Ödön von Horváth dissected the social and political topics of the Central European milieu in his plays, he became famous in the interwar period as a master of presenting the fates not only of impoverished and hopeless workers but even more so of the blinded administrators and middle-class citizens whose support contributed to Hitler’s rise to power.

Casimir and Caroline thematises the collapse of social relationships as a result of the economic crisis and analyses the causes of the rise of National Socialism. The main impetus of the play, set in the time of mass unemployment, is the seemingly banal breakup between Casimir, an unemployed driver, and Caroline, a junior clerk.