Radio Študent
22nd November 2011[…Buljan manages to] create a very dynamic stage current of happening on a single scene which pours the original idea of film bracketing in favour of the theatrical medium. Go karts drive across the stage; in the background, the video constantly helps to change the set atmospherically; when a mattress is not really a utility for a fight, it represents a bedroom. As a matter of fact, claustrophobic smallness of the stage responds very well to hero´s determination to suburban misery. […]
Koltès is quite visionary in his black adaptation of sappy dance movies from the eighties. Tony´s disgust and cynicism have in three decades thoroughly scattered through whole generations. This is no longer a lonesome phenomenon of a romantic-tragic hero in an otherwise bursting time of optimism. This is what we represent now, a lost generation without perspective; we are going to exhaust ourselves on small dance floors even before we could learn to dance well.
Pia Brezavšček
Radio Slovenija
20th November 2011Ivica Buljan sheds Koltès´ story into a compactly connected, heterogeneous dramatic world, in a team of one. This thought can be followed in performance´s form alone. Scenography is a collage of carefully selected items and looks like a sensitively woven lace from irreconcilable worlds. Just as heterogeneous is a sound image of the performance created by Mitja Vrhovnik Smrekar. Composed music is intertwining with pre-recorded sounds, as well as audio and music materials which are delivered live by actors. Costume-design approach by Ana Savić Gecan places the characters in space and time of happening, and at the same time, it exceeds them. The installation of costume elements functions as lynchian. The function of connecting parallel worlds in a team of one is supported by video and light design. They were signed by the artistic group son:DA. Highly physical expressivity of dramatic actors, characteristic of Buljan´s performances, is in Nickel Stuff supplemented by superb choreographic scores by dancers from the ensemble of the Opera and Ballet of Ljubljana. Stronger than the pronounced words, it is the atmosphere of created multi-genre world that builds up a story. The year 1980. Nickel bar in the suburbs of London. Exclusion of minorities with regard to ethnic origin, political orientation, social status and sexual orientation. Tony Allen has won twice. And he is a loser. How to live with the thought that you cannot become the person you could be?
Saška Rakef
TV Slovenija
21st November 2011Pleasing and communicative performance which joins theatre and film plays, the music of the eighties, but mostly a lot of street dance and creators of different cultures, therefore it will certainly attract not only admirers of Koltès´ work in theatre and film, but especially young generations which go to the theatre less and less frequently.
Marjana Ravnjak