GIRLS
Documentary play

Kolektiv Igralke (HR) & Tjaša Črnigoj (SLO)

The documentary play “Girls” is based on the confessions of women from three generations: performers in their thirties, their mothers who are around sixty years old, and their grandmothers who are around eighty years old. After the play “Grandmothers” (2020), this is the second collaboration between the Rijeka-based Igralke Collective and director Tjaša Črnigoj. This time, the authors deal with the themes of growing up, first sexual experiences, and sex education of several generations of women. They are interested in what “losing virginity” means to different generations, how afraid they were of unwanted pregnancy, and what support they had in their discovery of sexuality. Through an intimate excavation of family histories, the authors and performers encounter shame, pleasure, and silence, all the while offering an invitation to talk about things we don’t usually talk about.

The play “Girls” outlines the change of times and socio-political systems through the personal stories of women. In Croatia today, women’s reproductive and sexual rights are seriously threatened, and the question arises as to where we are going, whether the growing up of future generations will be more and more similar to the growing up of our grandmothers. In addition to conversations with grandmothers and mothers, the authors were also inspired by workshops with current teenage girls growing up in Rijeka. “Girls” thematically builds on the lecture-performance “Sex Education II: Struggle” by director Tjaša Črnigoj, which was created in the production of Nova pošta (Maska and Slovensko mladinsko gledališče) and Mesta žensk in Ljubljana, and together with it forms a diptych. “Struggle” is part of a broader cycle of lecture-performances about the sexual pleasure of women, created in partnership with the Igralke Collective, and reconstructs the struggle for women’s reproductive rights in Yugoslavia.

*The play lasts about an hour and is performed without intermission.

The play is not suitable for those under 14 years of age.