Ivan Vrgoč (photo: Jasna Lovrinčević)

Ivan Vrgoč and his santinis-Production will be the first in the world to apply 3D holographic projection technology to a theatre play, in the show Der Entertainer, within the Abriss Festival, at Theatre am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. The premiere of Der Entertainer will be on March 9, 2018. It will be shown the hologramm of two famous actors from Berlin, Harald Juhnke ( died 2005) and Anke Engelke. Abrissfestival, produced by santinis Produkction, held from January to May 6, 2018, is inspired by the closure and demolition of Theatre am Kurfürstendamm, which will be replaced by casino.

The Festival, which included four performances and three events from the series of Santinis & Friends, is the last spectacle at the Theatre am Kurfürstendamm of hundred years long tradition. The Trio Konstantin Wecker, Bodom Wartke and Benefiz – Jeder rettet einen Afrikaner (Charity – Everyone Saves One African) are in the programme of Santinis & Friends.

Ivan Vrgoč has been connected with Theatre am Kurfürstendamm in a very special way. The first santinis-Production, Rumors, Rumors, has became the most successful performance of all time at Theatre am Kurfürstendamm and it was the most attended production in Germany during the time of its performance. During the preparation for the Rumors Rumors, Ivan Vrgoč, who also played in that performance, decided to work as producer. Santinis-Production has produced also several others performances at Theatre am Kurfürstendamm. Their production of Eine Familie was nominated for the Berlin Friedrich Luft Prize, and the Noah Heidle, the author of the play Homemaker (Alles muss Glänzen), attended personaly the premiere and rehearsals of that performance.

I spoke with Ivan Vrgoč after the premiere of Das Wunder vom Ku’Damm (The Miracle of Ku’Damm), held on February 10, 2018, in which has been evoked the events related to the Theater am Kurfürstendamm after the decision had been made about its closure and demolition.

In the play Das Wunder vom Ku’Damm, based on the motives of the a 1987 science fiction movie Batteries Not Included (in Germany known as “Das Wunder in der 8. Straße” ), the theatre under threat from property investors received the help from the universe, from an unidentified flying object (UFO), which brought the whole Theatre to the universe.

In one of the leading roles in Das Wunder vom Ku’Damm, appeared Barbara Schöne, who brings to the play the spirit of the old, splended times of Theatre am Kurfürstendamm where she has used to play before she retired from the scene ten years ago. It is her first appearing on the stage after that time.

Alongside to the actors Patrick von Blume, Luise Schnittert, Holger Franke, and Gian-Philip Andreas, who play, sing and dance, the Berlin’s musician Nikko Weidemann is permanent on the scene with his nostalgic songs and also as accompanist playing guitar or keyboard. Although physically not in the theatre, the voice of Josef Hader, Austrian cabaretist and actor, resonated across the theatre, at the moment when the whole theatre schould be absorbed by an unidentified flying object.

Das Wunder vom Ku’Damm (Photo: Jasna Lovrinčević)

The whole show is a combination of musical, comedy, fantasy, true facts, nostalgia, hopes, irony and indifferent realities, but laugther and spontaneous applause in the audience (at the premiere) and applause in the rhythm of music, give impression about a theatre which is beyond the postmodern with its determinants. It is more about one which oscillates in indeterminacy of metamodernism.

Jasna Lovrinčević: Das Wunder vom Ku’Damm (The Miracle of Ku’Damm) is announced as the first ‘santinis’ production of a self-written text. If you could please tell more about the text, whose idea was to write that kind of text?

Ivan Vrgoč: The text was written by our dramatist Patrick Wildermann. He has been with us for five years. The text depicts the situation related to the demolition of the Theatre am Kurfürstendamm, the stories were told how they happened. That was our idea.

Going from the fact that the audience at the first public performance of Das Wunder vom Ku’Damm obviously had great fun and it was very satisfied with the performance, but theatre criticism has expressed a different opinion of the play, I asked:
Jasna Lovrinčević: Have you been personally satisfied with the text?
Ivan Vrgoč: I have been satisfied how the text has been made, but with the direction, I was only half satisfied.

Knowing that direction was not strange to Ivan Vrgoč because he already has worked as director, I wondered why he did not intervene.
Ivan Vrgoč: We could not intervene much because we focused on the second production “Der Entertainer” with popular German actor Peter Lohmeyer, which will be held on 9 March. For the first time we are working with a new technique, holography, which has never been used in the theatre. The musicians used it. With holography we will create actors who are on stage but also it will come to the stage Harald Juhnke who is already dead.

Jasna Lovrinčević: Did you need to have a special permmission for hologramm projection?
Ivan Vrgoč: We co-operate with the Musion Holotec company that runs it at a the global level. They have already made Michael Jackson’s hologram, Mariah Carey and so on. We came into contact with them and we met with them. I’ve got that idea for two or three years, but we can not finance it by ourself. When we got in touch with the Musion Holotec company, it was interesting also for them to try to apply holographic technique to a theatre. We’ve been working with them so we’ve managed to do it now.

Shitfaced Shakespeare

Theatre

The latest production of the Abriss Festival will be Shitfaced Shakespeare. It is very successful play in the United Kingdom, and it has been running since 2010. The company santinis-Production has received a license for the first adaptation of that concept to Germany.

Ivan Vrgoč: Shitfaced Shakespeare is scheduled for April or May, performances will take place until midnight, and later will be a party at the theater. It is a very successful play in England, and now it will be performed for the first time in Germany.

For the end of the Abriss Festival it has been prepared a big surprise .

Ivan Vrgoč: On the 5th and 6th of May, we will be presenting all the Abriss Festival performances from 14:00 to 20:00, until midnight, then it will start a big Abrissparty.

Noah Haidle (Photo: Jasna Lovrinčević)

The new play Alles muss glänzen – The Homemaker, produced by Ivana Vrgoč and his production company santinis-Production, premiered on 25 February in the Theater am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. The uniqueness of this premiere was the presence of the author of the play in the audience. The writer Noah Haidle specially came from America to be at the rehearsals, and he watched the first public performance. On the end of the performance it was spectacular moment when the producer Ivan Vrgoč invited Noah Haidle to join the actors on the stage while the audiences was greeting them with long applause.

Otherwise,the audience which completely filled the 800 seat theater, with spontaneous applause constantly was expressing its delight during the performance.

Ivan Vrgoč (Photo: Jasna lovrinčević)

Rebecca, played by famous German actress Maria Furtwängler, a central figure Haidle’s play is a housewive. She is a person of great hope, in constant expectation of her husband, full of understanding for everyone. She cooked and danced. Nothing could confused her in this sense, although around her all falled down, and the apocalyptic flood reached her window. “We can not different. We behave like everyone else. Live, as you do not have to die.” It was Rebecca’s answere to her daughter Rachel (Sarah Alles) when she asked her why they were so busy preparing their food, while outside the world was going to collapse. As Noah Haidle stated in my interview with him after the show, his inspiration for “The Homemaker” was his mother. At the end of the play he paid tribute to Rebecca’s choice of her lifestyle. Her husband, who long ago had gone in search to his happiness, returned and admited that he did not find a happiness on Kilimanjaro nor anywhere in the world, but he founded it in Rebecca’s home and at her set table. This emotionally charged moment, director Ilan Ronen placed deep under the water of the apocalyptic flood. The different scenes lined on the stage, surreal and tragicomic provoked gales of laughter, but also addressed issues of life and it’s meaning and metaphorically its opened the questions about a life in the actual world.

Ivan Vrgoc (Photo: Jasna Lovrinčević)

Just after the premiere, on my question about Santini’s preparations for the performance, producer Ivan Vrgoč said:
Ivan Vrgoč: “It was hard, but it was good. We are happy that the writer came from America and that we could applied his advice and suggestions.”

After the premiere I asked the author Noah Haidle what was his impression about the play.
Noah Haidle: “Well, watching a play of yours that you’ve written like a dream, watching a dream with bunch of people and then watching a play that you wrote, in German, with a bunch of people is really kind of a crazy dream. It was great!”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “People were laughing, but it is really serious?”
Noah Haidle: “Yes, hopefully the comedy brings people in, makes them think, and this is going to be fun and then you are going to punch them in the gut, hopefully.

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Mr. Ivan Vrgoč told that you would write a play specifically for his company Santinis?”
Noah Haidle: “Yes, that is the plan”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Do you already have the subject, something similar to tonight play?
Noah Haidle: “I do not know, hopefully something similar enough that it is good and different enough that I am not repeating myself.”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Who was the inspiration for Rebecca, for the play?”
Noah Haidle: It is my mum. She is the homemaker. Thats how we in America call a housewife. The women stayed home and didn’t have a career. So, what my mum did.”

Alles muss glänzen – Noah Haidle and Actors (Photo: Jasna Lovrinčević)

Noah Haidle has published several books, the most famous is Mr. Marmalade, in Germany published together with Lucky Happiness Golden Express and Ada And Her Daughter. The Homemaker or Alles muss glänzen, German magazine Theater heute named the best foreign theatrical play for the year 2015 in Germany.

Ivan Vrgoč ( Photo: Jasna Lovrinčević)

The actor and producer Ivan Vrgoč and his production company santinis – Produktion in Theater Kurfürstendamm in Berlin will set new performance Alles muss glänzen – Homemaker by American author Noah Haidle, honored by Theater Heute as the best foreign theater play in Germany in the year 2015. The premiere will be on February 24, 2017. The main role has been taken over by the leading German actress Maria Furtwängler, who also starred in Rumors, Rumors…, the first, very successful Santinis production in the year 2013.

Director Ilan Ronen works with Vrgoc and his santinis-Produktion for the second time. He directed “Eine Familie” two years ago which was the the first performace produced by santinis-Produktion nominated for the Berlin Friedrich Luft Prize. Author Noah Haidle has expressed a desire to write a stage play especially for santinis-Produktion. The artists trust and confidence in Vrgoc work as well as recognition of his work in just three years since he established his company, speak a lot about producer Ivan Vrgoč, his knowledge and his good feeling to choose a good theater play, which will move the audience, make it laugh and challenge it to think over. On the December 5, 2016 I spoke with Ivan Vrgoč about his new production and his work. He was not only in the middle of preparation for the premiere of Alles muss glänzen, but also he was in his busy schedule regarding the arrangements for the next shows and for a series of artistic evenings Santinis & Friends.

Noah Haidle Especially for Santinis-Produktion

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Why have you decided to produce Alles muss glänzen – The Homemaker?”
Ivan Vrgoč: “A play by Noah Haidle has received a Theater Heute Avord and we will produce the first performance in Berlin. So far the play has been shown in Hanover and in Switzerland in a small theater. We have received the rights for Berlin. The writer Noah Haidle will come from the United States to Berlin. He will be with us in rehearsals and at the premiere and after that he is going to write a theater play particulary for us. It’s all very exciting.”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “What has particularly motivated author Noah Haidle to write specifically for you?”
Ivan Vrgoč: “We started a conversation with him about this play. He was in Germany, we met with him twice: he, our dramatist and I. He found that very nice, we were a good company, it was a good “chemistry” between us. He will come from the USA to stay with us for three weeks in rehearsals. The idea to write to us came through our conversation as sometimes happens when you know each other well. We were a good company, so we had an idea that after our premiere he would write exclusively for us under a contract.”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Das the author Noah Haidle already have the subject for a new play?”
Ivan Vrgoč: “We haven’t talked about it. We are going to imagine a theme which is interesting for us, and he will begin to write a play next year.”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “The Homemaker-Alles muss glänzen has been performed in Hanover with a lot of surrealist elements?”
Ivan Vrgoč: ” The play is written like that (with surrealist elements), the figures in the play are also like that, but they are real people, they are characters with real emotions. In our performance it will be the water on stage, but we are going more to the realism. Regarding the performance in Hanover, we have the other actors, other performance, we have another approach. Director ist Ilan Ronen. He is the main leader of the National Theatre in Tel Aviv. He already directed Eine Familie for us. He works for the second time for us.”

Maria Furtwängler – Leading Role

In Alles muss glänzen – Homemaker, leading role has Maria Furtwängler, the most popular stars of TV series Tatort. The beautiful actress Maria Furtwängler and Ivana Vrgoč have cooperated since they attended the course by the renowned American acting coach Larry Moss in Berlin. They played together in the first Santinis production “Rumours Rumours … ” in the year 2013. This performance has been the most successful productions of all time in the Theatre am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin and it was the highest attended performance in Germany at the time of its presentations.

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Could you please say more about the cooperation with actress Maria Furtwängler?”
Ivan Vrgoč: “We met at course by couch Larry Moss in the year 2012 and all course participants decided to make a play together. We gathered together and also founded Santinis. We had a very successful performance “Rumours Rumours …” in 2013. We have stayed in friendly contact. When I was reading the Alles muss glänzen I thought she would be very good for the leading role of Rebcca, so I sent her proposal and text. She has read it and has fallen in love with it. So, we agreed to work together for the second time. After the first show, “Rumours Rumours …” she said, if we do the theater again, she would be with us again. We stayed constantly in touch and now, finally we have found a suitable play.”

Upcoming Events

Jasna Lovrinčević: “This is your fifth productions. Until now there have been two comedies, “Rumours Rumours …” and “Eine Familie”. The other two performances, “Abgesoffen” by Carlos Eugenio Lopez with the current theme of refugees and migration and “Disgraced” by Ayad Akhtar with the theme of political correctness, both are dealing with serious social issues with political connotations.”

Ivan Vrgoč: “Alles muss glänzen – Homemaker is not just a comedy, it is more in the style of David Lynch as a bad dream. It’s really funny, but it is quite dramatic. The point is that the whole world shakes, that something is wrong, something is going on that need to be watched carefully. There are plenty of biblical contexts, big water comes, flooding, where one look whether the world will survive or not. This is the theme of the play, but limited to one family who seeks happiness in it. Even Eine Familie was a social theme, but there were a lot to laugh, but also a lot of pain, a good recipe for a night out, to think about and to laugh.”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Abgesoffen by Carlos Eugenio Lopez with the theme of refugees and Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar with the theme of political correctness were almost like the forerunners of reality to come. Is the audience ready for these kinds of topics? ”
Ivan Vrgoč: “In any other theater it is. The last production was difficult because we hired theater Kurfürstendamm, known for its light (boulevard) comedies, where is difficult to find an audience. And now, in a new production with Maria Furtwängler, a very popular actress, this is not a big risk. The play will begin in late February, we started selling tickets a month ago and we’ve already sold over 3,000 tickets. For us it is always better to make a new topic. The audience is mature, of course. The themes of our plays are not about imaginary subjects, we all deal with these topics every day; we read, or feel, or see something. Every day these topics are here, just we do not talk about it through politics, but through people or family as a metaphor, what is beyond that. But the themes are about that what everyone can feel: How has your life been till now ? What have I done? Is my life good or not? Have I fulfilled my wishes, what did I think about it when I was young? I’ m older now, have I taken path what I am now considering as wrong, or am I going right way now? Am I really happy with my life? This is usually the tipe of reflection which each of us sometimes ask yourself from time to time.”

Santinis&Friends

Since September 2016 santinis-Produktion has begun a new production Santinis & Friends.

Ivan Vrgoč (Photo: Jasna Lovrinčević)

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Are you satisfied with the audience response?”
Ivan Vrgoč: “It has been great. We have got different writers, actors and singers. Olli Schulz has performed four times and each time he has been sold out, and all four performances have been sold out two hours after the tickets went on sale. Over 3000 people contacted us and two hours later, there were no more tickets to sell. Writer Heinz Strunk also has been sold out. Hanna Schygulla, actress, has not been sold out, but there were many people in audience. One singer has been canceled due to illness, but he will come in the February 2017, so we have prolonged Santinis events. In February we will have another three events, two concerts and a reading. It is going well ”

Jasna Lovrinčević “How do you select your guests?”
Ivan Vrgoč: “We have concentrated on Sing and Song Writers who write in German, but they are not only singers, they also read from theirs books and they have the guests. I am friend with some of them. For example, I met Olli Schulz through my daughter. My daughter and his daughter have been the best friends since their kindergarten time. We were talking if we could do something together. So it’s private contact.”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Do the artists contact you on their own initiative?”
Ivan Vrgoč: “Always, and we are very happy about it. They usually contact us through others artists. Very popular persons are seeking contact with us. We receive a lot of e-mails. We do not select just the most popular artists, our goal is not just to fill the theater. At first we consider who is the best actor for the particular performance.”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “You do not act in Alles muss glänzen –The Homemaker, don’t you?”
Ivan Vrgoč: “I have no time. I have a lot of work to do, two children and at the moment it would be no a good idea to act.”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Do you miss acting?”
Ivan Vrgoč: “I think so, but I have no time to think about it. When the time comes to take a roll it will be much stronger desire for acting.”

Plans for New Production

Jasna Lovrinčević: Do you already have plans for the next production. In last interview in March you announced collaboration with Larry Moss (?) ”
Ivan Vrgoč: “Alles muss glänzen- Homemaker will be performed till the end of the March 2017 and by the end of the year we are preparing three new productions with different topics. We are going to produce for the first time in Cologne. It will be production with Annette Frier who starred in Eine Familie. There are plenty of ideas, we would like to produce in other cities. In Berlin, we have good sponsors like BMW, we have a lot of contacts and we are looking for it in other cities. That is necessary, without that you can not work. We had planned to work with Larry Moss at this period of time, but because Maria Furtwängler only now has time to work with us, we had to postpone the play with Larry Moss for the winter 2017/2018. We stay in contact with him and we plan together. At the moment we don’t know exactly when it will be play with Moss. We have already a play (titel) but it could be changed. ”

Jasna Lovrinčević: ” Are all titles of the planned performances already known?”
Ivan Vrgoč: “Two performances are already certain; one comedy from London, where we were last autmn and where we met with its directors and producers and bought the rights that the comedy could come to Germany. This is the play I have planned in Cologne with Annette Frier. The second play is a book that is now being dramatized and I expect the first version for the theater before Christmas. There are plenty of plans and some of them are not only ideas but we are working on them. Others ideas are still in my mind. ”

Jasna Lovrinčević: ” Santinis– Produktion development is an unbelievable. It started with only one performance in the year 2013, and now it has a divergent development regarding the number and diversity of production.”
Ivan Vrgoč: “Yes, it becomes larger and larger. It is important to us because it gives us flexibility. If one play does not go well, with more performances we can shift the risk and money, or if one does not go well we switch to another. We are happy that five of six Santinis & Freiends productions have gone great, but normally, it can not alway to go as I would like to go.”

When he draws a parallel between acting and his work as a producer he told: “The acting ist always essential.”

The first experience for Ivan Vrgoč as a producer it was his production of Rumors by Neila Simon performed by The Santinis, the acting group in which he participates.

He decided to be the producer of this performance after the Santinis had already chosen Rumors to be their first exit in front of the audience. The member of Santinis, the actress Leslie Malton, who used to work with famous directors, suggested to Vrgoč to produce this performance.
” O.K., why not to try”, said Vrgoč, he founded the production company and today he says: “Thank to God, it was successful.”

The performance was enormously successful. It was the most successful performance ever for the Theater am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin where it was performed. Every day, from 13th of January till 28th of February in the year 2013 during the performance time, there were eigth hundert people in the audience and theather was completly full. In the same period of time, Rumors was also the most attended performance in Germany.
“Just now I negotiate to go on tour with Rumors to Austria, Swiss and through Germany”, said Vrgoč.

It is demanding and requires an enormous personal involvement to produce a play and to act in it at the same time. But Ivan Vrgoč says that this kind of combination doesn’t represent a hard task for him.
Ivan Vrgoč: “This kind of combination is not difficult for me. There is a lot of work to do, but I don’t perceive it as work. As a producer I have to take account of the whole organisation, but since I am also acting in the play, I admire what I do. When I am preparing the play I don’t think about the amount of work. I have never said – Oh, what more I have to do – I adore to be in this process. I really enjoy it.”

Santinis

Santinis is an acting group founded by eigth famous German actors who twice together attended the workshop of the respected American acting coach Larry Moss in Berlin.
“We were all introduced to each other at the workshop of Larry Moss”, said Ivan Vrgoč. They derived inspiration from Moss’s approach to acting, directoring and to theater work. It delighted them to start a new project together which they called Santinis. Moss’s capability to motivate the actor was the main impetus for that.

“He knows how to motivate the actor so that he can completely be ready to take a role”, says Vrgoč and he continues: “The aim of Moss’s school is that the actors serve the purpose to support the main idea of the author. The actors only execute the author’s idea. Often the idea of the author is not in the first place but more directoring. The director puts his own ideas with the goal to make his art visible that once can be seen as his handscript. The role of a director is to respect the author’s work, he should go together with all actors on the journey and to discover what the writer wanted to say, and not to bring ideas which are not written in the script.”

The first performance of Santinis was a comedy, and about his plans in the future Ivan Vrgoč says: We are looking for another play and another theatre because we don’t like to play a comedy again in the same theatre.”

Theatre and film actor

Ivan Vrgoč has acted in a comedy in Frankfurt and in Munich. On the question if he likes comedy or if it hapened by chance to play multiple times in a comedy, he answered:

Ivan Vrgoč: “I like comedy, but it was by chance that I acted in a comedy in Frankfurt, and then the same performance went to Munich.”

Ivan Vrgoč attended the acting school in Cologne and Berlin. He has acting experience in theatre and in film. In the performance of „Was ihr wolt or Twelfth Night or What You Will” by Shakespeare he performed the two main roles.
Ivan Vrgoč: “It was very inspiring to play two big and main roles in the same performance.”

He told he doesn’t have any desire for a specific role.
Ivan Vrgoč: “As I am personaly changing, my desire for the roles are also changing. When I was in twenties I wanted to performe other roles than now. I like that kind of job, but I would’t like to prioritise one or another role.”

It was interesting from the position of an spectator to hear how the the actor perceives the audience from the stage.
Ivan Vrgoč: “I feel the audience and that feeling is very important. Nevermind how deep I am involved in my role or with the co-actors on stage, it is impossible to ignore the energy of five, six or eight hundert people in the audience. That is important. It is important to understand the audience; to feel if it is focused on the play, if it is enthralled by the performance. That doesn’t mean that I look where somebody sits, I am not interested in that, but I feel the audience. It is just a feeling, and not soemthing I am thinking about.

He was acting in many films, and two years ago, in the film Die vierte Macht, he acted together with the actor Rade Šerbedžija. He says that he has an enormous respect towards him as an actor and he would like to work with him again in the future.

Ivan Vrgoč was born in Frankfurt am Main, where he lived before he went to Berlin. His origin is Croatian. He goes with his family every year to Croatia, mostly to Split and the surrounding area where his parents were born.

Interview with Ivan Vrgoč held in April 2013