Nora Gregor – The Hidden Continent of Memory / skriti kontinent spomina / il continente nascosto della memoria / ein verborgener Kontinent der Erinnerung

Nora Gregor, an acting icon of her time and victim of the historic events of the first half of the twentieth century, was born in 1901 to a German-speaking family from Gorica, which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. At the end of World War I the city was accorded to Italy, which was merciless to the citizens of Austrian descent, so Nora’s family was forced to move to Austrian Graz. In 1920, Nora had her theatre debut in Vienna and got her first film role that same year. Soon she became one of the most famous and most sought after actresses of her time. Not only was she a star of the Burgtheater in Vienna, she acted in Berlin and Paris and collaborated with the most famous directors of the era, including Max Reinhardt. She also starred in films in Europe and was invited to Hollywood where she appeared in the early successful talkies. At the height of her career she met the Austrian aristocrat Prince Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg, with whom she had a son, Heinrich, in 1934. Her marriage in 1937 gave her a title, but also brought the end to her shining career, while the Anschluss of Austria to Nazi Germany caused exile, loneliness, and finally an early death.
The author of the text and director, Neda R. Bric (1967), known for her successful and award-winning performances of the »Primorska Trilogy« Trieste – Alessandria Embarked (the Story of Aleksandrinke), Eda – the Rusjan Brothers Story, and He Who Fares Alone Through the World Till Evening (Simon Gregorčič), will this time primarily speak about the glitter-filled and misery-laced life story of Nora Gregor, about a place of a woman in society, and about one woman’s inner struggle between her missions as artist, mother and wife. In the year which commemorates the hundredth anniversary of the events that led to World War I, the performance will explore the complex relationship between the three neighbouring nations and the influence of the great societal changes on an individual – they may at first seem innocent, but can suddenly overturn a person’s life completely.
The performance will be an international theatre coproduction between the SNG Nova Gorica, the Mladinsko Theatre, Schauspielhaus Graz (Austria), and the Italian partner Il Rossetti, Teatro stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia from Trieste. The cast will include actors from all the partner theatres in the languages of all three nations. The multimedia performance Nora Gregor will be accompanied by a number of events that will expand its contents: a cinema retrospective of Nora Gregor’s films, an exhibition about her life, a symposium about the cinematography and theatre of her time, workshops for students, and a festival of art installations.