HERO 4.0

Business as Usual

About the show

“Is this alright with you?”
“The promo text?”
“Yes… “
“No.”
“Okay, let’s go step by step.”
“OK, let’s erase what we have and start again.”

The two heroes are once again facing the battle of their lives. They joined forces and put aside the fights between them. They are no longer fighting for an audience. Or against it. They fight together with the audience: for content, for meaning and for time.

“I think that’s enough.”
“Sure, it’s a promo text.”
“Exactly. It just has to grab your attention and make you think: I really have to go and see this.”

Once you’re on stage, you can’t get rid of it. You can’t avoid it. We have descended into a game whose rules are so simple, so absolute and so relentless that you cannot hide and you cannot stay hidden. Either we have something to say or we are ‘acting’.

“Now we have to be careful not to give too much away.”
“Yeah, it can’t be like a trailer that tells you everything.”
“In the sense that we’re talking about death and doubt and passing?”
“Yes, this we have to keep for the show.”
“We still need something, though.”

From this point on, it’s just a question of whether it will pay off. The time we spend together is limited. We are all running out of it. We need to be even more honest. We need to think even more. We need to try even bolder.

“Don’t know. When I read it, it’s so general.”
“Yes, I agree. It’s just empty phrases.”
“All right, let’s delete this one.”
“Yeah, it’s enough for a promo text. For more, there will be a programme booklet.”

Theatre is a space where you have to fight for content, where you have to earn your position of utterance. If you run out of content, you run out of heroes. There is no room for doubt. We are all aware of where we are, the roles are allotted, the consensus is made. We are on this side, you are on the other. Let the game begin.
Business as usual.

“Does the title work for you?”
“Of the performance?”
“Yes.”
“Now we just need an audience.”

Authors and performers: Uroš Kaurin and Vito Weis

Dramaturgy: Katarina Stegnar

Video: Boris Bezić

Music: Lea Čehovin

Poster and Glej, Paper design: Ivian Kan Mujezinović and Mina Fina / Grupa EE

Glej, Paper Editor: Tery Žeželj

Merchandise design: Toni Soprano Meneglejte

Light design: Gašper Bohinec

Technical management: Gašper Bohinec and Grega Mohorčič

Photography: Ivian Kan Mujezinović, Andrej Firm
Video trailer: Nejc Vehovec

Executive producers: Nika Bezeljak, Anamarija Nađ, Anja Pirnat, Barbara Zonta

Public relations: Anamarija Nađ, Paulina Pia Rogač, Tina Malenšek
Premiere: 13. 10. 2023, Intimni oder GT22, Maribor, 1. 12. 2023, Gledališče Glej, Ljubljana
Production: Moment Maribor, Gledališče Glej
Residency and festival partners: Hiša kulture (Celje), Desirée Central Station (Subotica), TESZT Festival (Timisoara)

 

Supported by the Ministry of Culture of Slovenia, the Municipality of Maribor and the Municipality of Ljubljana.

“They restored my faith in comedy.”

– Mare Bulc, artistic director of LGL (comment after the performance)

Hero 4.0 – Business as Usual

Hero 4.0 is a serious, but (mostly) hilariously funny performance, which this time involves the relationship of the creators as a necessary condition and less as a theme... Business as usual - immersion in pop references, reflection on theater, exposing and making fun of toxic male archetypes and, above all, skillful navigation with humor, which is always on the verge of being able to build or tear down the performance.

– Anja Radaljac, Delo, 18. 10. 2023
Hero 4.0 – Business as Usual

 

In the absence of narrative sense and dramatic content, the exceptional stage mood of Uroš Kaurin and Vito Weis expands the theatrical field of the play to infinity. The unusual ludicrous engagement of the comic-grotesque turns of open dramaturgy reminded us of the overextension of the meaning of the play of an individual theatrical act and, in general, of the meaning of the definition of art as serious frivolity.

– Branislav Filipović, Magločistač, 1. 12. 2023
Hero 4.0 – Business as Usual

Now I see again what I really like when I watch them; the relationship these two people have with each other. I understand that this is theater, but it's clear how they do it: they are very different, maybe even in the way they think about the world, but they are curious about each other. They create from that.

– Lilla Proics, Dorottya Réka Szabó (interview), Revizoronline, 9. 1. 2024
Hero 4.0 – Business as Usual

The performers introduce the meaning of co-responsibility so softly, without forcing us into the performance in any way. We enter it all the time with our reactions, especially with laughter, with which we respond to them and through this we confirm and encourage them... So the key is that we are together.

-Siri Savski, Radio Študent, 21. 12. 2023
Hero 4.0 – Business as Usual

Hero 4.0 – Business as usual is a brilliant performance, the fruit of extremely serious humor and brilliant teamwork by two excellent Slovenian actors… I don’t want to reveal anything, because then there will be no more surprises – let it be enough that this performance is a holiday for both the audience and the actor.

– Csenge Koós, ujvarad.ro, 26. 5. 2024
Hero 4.0 – Business as Usual

They appear on stage, the two of them, and from the first moment they take the audience with them. Laughter follows… It was fun. We drank tequila, laughed about Dracula and death, had a break with popcorn and at the end a well-deserved cha-cha-cha. The phenomenon of “theater within a theater” is not new. But in this performance, the creators have pushed the boundaries, which I cannot generalize for myself as: “Yes, this is such a modern theater.”

– Lilien Radó, teszt.ro (festival blog), 26. 5. 2024
Hero 4.0 – Business as Usual

The audience is the last element that Hero trains to be able to compose itself into a stage event. But he does not take it for granted, as bourgeois theater usually does. On the contrary, Hero forges a bond of solidarity with the audience.

– Blaž Gselman, Sigledal, 12. 12. 2023
Hero 4.0 – Business as Usual