The Bailiff Jernej (2018): Documentary Representation of Poverty and Social Shame

Abstract

The paper analyses the introduction of the themes of poverty, social exclusion, classism and class shame into the field of contemporary Slovenian drama in the form of a case study. The documentary theatre production The Bailiff Jernej and His Rights (Hlapec Jernej in njegova pravica), directed by Žiga Divjak, was created in 2018 as one of the many events marking the 100th anniversary of the death of Ivan Cankar, the author of the work of the same title upon which Divjak based the performance. Divjak’s documentary reinterpretation of Cankar’s short story The Bailiff Yerney and His Rights performs an engaged gesture of empowerment of the invisible and underpaid working forces, who are thus given a voice in the public sphere. Divjak draws central thematic motifs such as precarious work, workers’ rights, subordination and poverty from Cankar’s “social tale” and, through the gesture of documentary research, transposes them to the present time, thus affirming the idea of the deep-rooted existence of the proletariat, even if, with a time lag, it appears today in a different form and with altered effects. The attribute is precisely the “play”, which could also be described as a “dramatic text” since the dramatic is inscribed into it not in terms of form and dramaturgical elements but as the essence and effect of documentary narratives.