The Smart Chick

on programme

This performance doesn't have any called terms at the moment.

premiere

03. December 2005, Gledališče Koper
Second premiere 10. January 2006, SNG Nova Gorica

about text

The Smart Chick, a new story written by actress and author Maja Aduša Vidmar talks about an unhappy hen who hatches a smart chick. The entire hen house is a flurry, for is has never happened before that a chick would know more than a hen. The chick looks like nobody else in the hen house and also has a completely different voice, so the cock demands that they get rid of it. Everybody agrees, except for the mother hen, who is willing to suffer so that the chick can have a mother. At that moment, the owl appears, looking for her young one. She immediately realises that the blue chick is her baby.
The story about the unusual chicken is not and does not want to be just a cute tale about an innocent feathery intruder that brought shame and trouble to the hen house, but want to remind young spectators of the equality of all living creatures, big or small - human beings included. It wants to tell the children that "different" does not equal "bad" and that the "different" ones that go to kindergarten with us can be our best friends, that we needn't be afraid of the new, the unknown and the unusual and that we must look and see the ones who are different from us with our hearts.

in media

The playwriting technique of Maja Aduša Vidmar, who builds her text on a powerful metaphor, deals with the final scene in which the Owl and her baby, Dot, meet quickly - maybe too quickly; and lets the maternal instinct to take care of the rest. The world we are watching is a hen-world, but at the same time it is also very human/Slovene: based on the cock's (almost traditional and hence barely perceptible) grumbling, full of self-congratulatory acceptance of mediocrity and the existence in ignorance, and at the same time on being proud of their (innate) blindness.
This, it seems, simply calls for reviewing the lesson why a human being differs from an animal, a Slovene from poultry. The central, "problem" theme of the play (directed by Katja Pegan) /.../ speaks out indirectly but loudly, retains the nuances the text offers and keeps opening questions. One has to say - it does a good job.
Primož Jesenko, Delo, 9. 12. 2005


Fortunately, all ends well, the blue chick finds his birth mother, the Owl, and the spectators are left with an important message: for the children, a lesson about equality and respect for others, for the adults, a gentle reminder to love our children, endlessly and unconditionally. To respect the sanctity of life, make them wanted, rejoice in them for their sake and not for the sake of our pleasure when watching them, caring for them, loving them. A cursory analogy with the Ugly Duckling.
The play is lively and there is tension from the beginning to the end. The colourful costumes by Ana Matijević - a fantastic onomatopoetic interpretation of feathery creatures - the almost childlike, but undoubtedly genuine playfulness of the blue chick, the simple and very expressive set by Milan Percan and the appropriate music by Mirko Vuksanovič are the details that look like petals of a white daisy around its yellow stamen. The actresses twirl around the stage, lightly and cheerfully, play through the dialogues that are not too long, so half an hour of the performance passes in a blink.
The climax of the story with the denouement that is just long enough ends happily and that softens the tragedy of the little outcast - which, in turn, certainly does not disappoint the young audience.
Lea Kalc Furlanič, Primorske Novice, 10. 12. 2005

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