Biography

Lucija Klarić studied at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, Zagreb. She is a writer and dramaturg who likes “interactive” things. She is a two-time winner of the national playwriting prize for young people and the “Words Beyond” competition. Her work is translated into French, Italian, and English. She is a resident at several international programs. She is proud of her big teddy bear with whom she runs The Bureau of Missing Reactions.

_________

“THIS IS OUR HOUSE”

is a text about the unstoppable progress of history and the generations of a family that survives it. It’s not a story about the great historical events and big tragedies of worldly proportions but about a microhistory being built through several generations that preserved the family line amidst the unpredictable and crushing movements of history. Told through the perspective of a female and male character, the couples of the family, the drama poses questions on where is the line between the conservation of the family tree and heritage in relation to our own life and happiness? What is it that we consider to be essential to pass on to our kids and grandkids – to those that come after us, and what do we actually pass on to them? Using the idea of the couple as the vehicle to tell the story, as the basis of the family, an intimate chronicle unfolds in which survival and self-preservation always triumph over love, perhaps to this very day, and perhaps not. As the (family) house still stands, it gathers the things we would’ve loved to forget and hide and holds the things we decided to conserve and build in its foundation, so what happens when the house becomes too full of history to continue? What do we do with all that baggage that was quietly passed on for years and is there hope for a world bigger than one house?