Storefront & Bench Productions :The Doll
http://storefrontnyc.com

Relationships were complicated enough before the advent of computers, cell phones, Facebook, and other social media.  Technology can make connection and communication in a relationship easier.  But what happens when we turn to technology in order to provide the relationship for us?  Can technology fulfill us in a way that a true male-female relationship cannot?

The drama The Doll tells of a 39-year-old man whose girlfriend leaves him after a six-year relationship due to his reluctance for the marriage and child that she wants. Left alone, he cannot bear the loneliness and after a few months begins to live with a woman-doll, the latest android designed to make man happy.  But the android was constructed by a female scientist, who gave some of her own views on male-female relationships to the android, so that through the dramatic and humorous situations undergone by this lonely man and the “doll”, the audience sees the essence of wrongdoing toward women and the misunderstanding of them by today’s men.  In living with a "doll”, the man will gradually become aware of the mistakes for which his girlfriend left him.

This drama is markedly contemporary, pinpointing the spirit of our times.  This is a drama of the 21st century because it tells of people who increasingly live a virtual life, naively believing that true interpersonal and male-female relationships can be replaced by a virtual world, with "dolls" or with "bought love".  At the end of the play, both our hero and the audience realize that nothing can truly replace direct human communication.

The future, which has already begun, is described with much humor in this drama through two convincing characters. Seen from the standpoint of production, the performance is quite simple because we have only two actors and only one area in which the story takes place.

In the first week after the play’s translation into English, great interest was shown from producers, theaters, and translators from Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Argentina and Italy, such that agreements for translations in multiple languages have already been made.  The Croatian premiere of this play will be held in autumn of this year in Zagreb, the Croatian capital.

Analysis of “The Doll”

The playwright’s skill in directing dialogue is especially prominent in dramatic texts written for a smaller number of characters, of which some of the best are in duo dramas like The Doll, where Miro Gavran exposes himself as a thinker close to the idea of gender equality and also as a subtle advocate from a women's point of view. Women as main characters, from prosaic Judith to the doll Stella, represent a constant in Gavran's literary works and are the expression of the writer's repeatedly pronounced assertions that women are more interesting as literary characters because they have been less often the literary subject; he holds their fate more complex and complicated than the fate of men.Gavran's interest in the issue of differences between men and women has already been demonstrated in the dramas All About Women and All About Men.

While Ibsen's Nora is an intertextual base for Gavran's Nora today, in The Doll (a heretofore unpublished and never before performed comedy),the dramatist is dealing with a similar theme, but from the perspective of relations between a woman-doll and a man-buyer who is disappointed in love. In this comedy,Gavran has shaped the character of Stella as belonging somewhat in the realm of science fiction. It should be kept in mind that Stella is not an inflatable doll, but a woman of flesh and blood, albeit laboratory-produced, and Mark is a man who is scared of marital and family obligations, which led to the termination of his previous love affair with Mary. Despite expectations, Stella does not turn out to be an ideal woman for Mark because she forces him to face his mistakes in life and in the way he approaches women.  It is a lesson that every man should learn - your partner will reciprocate your own treatment of her. When you shower your partner with respect, when you believe in her, she feels confident. But when you undervalue her, she feels miserable and insignificant. Talks between the two lovers touch many other important themes in male-female relationships, ranging from the more quotidian ones, such as the division of household chores and maintenance of physical fitness, to relationships with families and children, sexual habits and needs, to questions about the meaning of life and faith in God and people.

The Director and Playwright

Sanja Bestic, renowned New York-based theatre director, has received exclusive rights to “The Doll” in both the US and Canada.  Sanja was born in Belgrade, Serbia, and pursued theatre directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts at Belgrade University, graduating with an M.A. in Theatre History and Stage Direction.  She attended a fellowship at the Moving Academy of Performing Arts in Amsterdam while working intensively with the Theatre of Shadows.  She began study at the Michael Chekhov Acting Studio and the Lee Strasburg Institute for Theatre and Film after moving to New York.  In 2010, she co-founded The Local Theatre, a non-profit contemporary art gallery.  She recently entered into an exclusive partnership with media company Storefront + Bench as their sole theatre director.The playwright of The Doll himself, Miro Gavran, lauds Sanja and her work in his letter granting her rights to these productions, specifically mentioning his faith in her interpretation of the layers of meaning in his drama.  He also praises Sanja’s success in directing his play All About Women in March 2012.  

Miro Gavran, born in 1961, is a Croatian playwright and novelist whose works have been translated into thirty-five languages. To date, his plays have had more than two hundred premiers worldwide and have been seen by more than two million theatre-goers. He is the only living playwright in Europe to have a theatre festival devoted to his work; only plays based on his texts are performed at the Gavranfest, which was founded in Slovakia in 2003 and is held every year. His major plays include: Creon’s Antigone, Night of the Gods, George Washington’s Loves, Chekov Says Good-bye to Tolstoy, All About Women, All About Men, Doctor Freud’s Patient, Hotel Babylon, How to Kill the President, Nora in our Time, Greta Garbo’s Secret, Parallel Worlds, The Craziest Show in the World, My Wife’s Husband, Forget Hollywood and Death of an Actor. For the past twenty years, Gavran has been the most highly performed Croatian playwright both at home and abroad.

The Play

Location:	New York City, West End
Dates & Times:	Friday, June 22 (opening night) - 8:00 p.m. Saturday, June 23 –  8:00 p.m. Sunday, June 24 – matinee, 8:00 p.m. Thursday, June 28 – 8:00 p.m. Friday, June 29 – 8:00 p.m. Saturday, June 30 – 8:00 p.m Sunday, July 1-matinee – 3p.m
Address:	THE LOCAL THEATRE at GALLERY MC 549 West 52nd Street, 8th floor NYC 10019
Contact:	212.581.1966, 917.499.23.70

Formatted for CROWN by   Marko Puljić
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