The opening performance in the repertoire of the 2026 Golden Lion International Chamber Theatre Festival in Umag. This season, for the 27th Golden Lion International Chamber Theatre Festival in Umag, the Umag Drama Studio will stage Gertrude Stein's choreodrama “To Play”. The production was first staged in Slovenia in 1998 in the basements of Tivoli Castle in Ljubljana. Later, at the initiative of Janez Pipan, the then-director of the Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubljana, it was moved to the alternative spaces of this central Slovenian drama hub. This performance was recognized as an important aesthetic precedent that transcended the traditional boundaries of staging drama productions. It was even described as an “aesthetic excess.”
Director Damir Zlatar Frey decided to stage this piece to bring visual forms of expression closer to the theatre audience. The performance is conceived as a visual and sonic composition in which words do not serve the usual purpose of conveying information, but instead become a rhythmic element.