Sanja Nikčević


Sanja Nikčević is Croatian theatre critic, distinguished professor of theatre history at Drama Department Arts Academy of Osijek. She is also a Head of Drama module at Doctoral program in literature at Faculty of Philosophy, University of Osijek. President of Croatian Critic's Association and Governing Board of Matica hrvatska. Lives in Zagreb, Croatia.

Education and work

Born in Varaždin, at Faculty of Philosophy Zagreb obtained a BA, MA and Ph.D. with topic on American drama. She worked as a journalist and theatre critic in Croatian daily newspaper Večernji list, was adviser for theatre in and freelancer.

Academic career

She was Fulbright scholar twice and lectured at the University of California, Santa Barbara, United States in 2001. From 2003 she is employed at the English department, teaching courses on American and British drama, where she still works at Ph.D. literature program. From 2007 she is employed at the Arts Academy in Osijek where she is teaching courses on history of world drama and theatre.

Activities in international and national associations

She was founder and first president of Croatian Center of ITI-UNESCO where she organized numerous international events. From 2004 secretary, from 2010 president of a national theatre critics’ organization, from 2014 member of the Main/Governing board of Matica hrvatska.
She has served as EXCOM board member for ITI Worldwide for two terms and is an active member of numerous international and American associations of scholars and critics .

Editorial activities

At Croatian center of ITI she started and edited publication Croatian drama and . She was the editor of Mansions edition until 2004 and published more than thirty books. From 1998 - 2002 she was editor of Croatian mainstream theatre journal Theatre. She founded Ars Academica where she was editor from 2009–2013.

Publishing activities and field of interest

Her main topics of research are American drama, contemporary European drama, Croatian war drama and theatre criticism and history of theatre.
She participated at more than hundred national, American, and international symposiums. She published more than hundred articles on European and American theatre in English were published in America, Hong Kong, Japan, Poland, Bosnia, Hungary, Slovakia, Macedonia and Slovenia in academic or theatre journals and academic edited volumes, forwards of books and so on. She is publishing theatre reviews in Croatian weekly cultural newspaper. She published six books and edited six anthologies.

American drama

In Croatia she has edited Anthology of American Plays in two volumes and published three books on American drama: The Subversive American Drama or Sympathy for Losers ; and Losers' Genius in Our Town''.
In these books she introduced new classification of American drama based on attitude of plays toward main American myth – American dream. Plays that show losers and failures of American dream she calls subversive. The plays that show characters that can accept their position in life and make the most of it she designated as affirmative American plays.

European drama and new trends

Her book on imposing a trend of in-yer-face theatre all over Europe , was attacked and praised simultaneously. It has been translated in Slovak and Bulgarian, selected chapters were published in several languages – English, Polish and Hungarian . Book become textbook in several universities and it was reviewed all over the word and included as one of rare non-english books as literature in official website of in-yer-face theatre by British critic Alex Siers. Book received prestigious Croatian Award. After five years was published where she included not just additional chapter about destiny of new European drama in these five years but all the reactions on the book.

Croatian drama

She has edited first anthology of Croatian plays published outside Croatia: Anthology of Contemporary Croatian Drama.
Her book on Croatian drama ?, is dealing with some less fashionable but very important writers, genres and topics .
She offered new classification of Croatian drama, eighties were dealing with emoitions and inner world of hero , authors of the nineties are in search in the intertextuality while newest period is in the search of the voice between these three points.

Croatian war drama (on Homeland war)

Edited:
  1. ' where she included 11 plays.
  2. ' where she included 8 comedies .
  3. Anthology of Croatian Post-War Plays 1996-2011 where she included 12 plays. Lydia Scheuermann Hodak Slike Marijine, Pavao Pavličić Olga i Lina , Hrvoje Barbir Barba Telmah, Vlatko Perković Deus ex machina, Slobodan Šnajder Ines & Denise, Dubravko Mihanović Žaba, Gordana Ostović Parsifal, Tena Štivičić Fragile, Amir Bukvić Djeca sa CNN-A, Igor Hamer Jura, samo jučerašnja vijest, Lada Martinac Ko me to pokriva?, Miro Međimorec Vukovarski nokturno.
The anthologies and her theoretical work on the topic are changing the usual believes that we do not have war plays form Homeland war or that these plays are not of a good quality. Her research showed that from 1990-2011more than hundred professional Croatian plays published or performed plays that are connected with topic either directly either through some character connected with war, either through allegory.
Analysis of a plays shows the completely different attitudes of war plays and postwar plays. War plays were affirmative and worm plays, melodramas and comedies helping audience to survive the crazy and illogical reality giving some hope and sense. Plays are showing possible solutions of conflicts, and even when hero dies at the end survives a warm and positive emotions above him that allows audience to feel, to go through very intensive and purifying catharsis. After-war plays are completely different. Although every plays had his author’s ideological and political position, in post-war plays about Homeland war this is very obvious. So called “left” authors consider former system as good and blame Croatia for what they call civil war. On the other side, so called “right” writers consider communism as the worst ideology ever, wished Croatian independence from Yugoslavia and Homeland war as result of Serbian aggression to Croatian territory. But both sides consider the society we live in as the failure without any solution or exit for a good and honest characters, without any catharsis at the end for the audience. The both sides try to understand reasons for that – “left” side thinks that guilt is on Croatian nationalists who destroyed communism and former Yugoslavia in the moment that things were good. The right side think that is to blame former communists who now mimicries in democratic political system and destroying our new society. Post war comedy is even darkest: it is grotesque that laughter at aberration of society but that laughter stays frozen at the end because aberration is for ever

Theatre criticism

She edited a collection on essays in English Theatre Criticism Today as a result of three syposiums on theatre criticism that she organized in the Croatian centre of ITI.
She published first theoretical book on theatre criticism in Croatia: Theatre Criticism or Inevitable Companion. where she compared two different attitudes toward theatre criticism with new definition of the genre.

Awards

2013. Award Antun Gustav Matoš Matica Hrvatska for best critical book
2006. New European Drama or Big Deception Award Petar Brečić for book on theatre
2000. The Order of Croatian Pleter by the President of the Republic Croatia for the promotion of the Croatian culture
1999. A Honorary citizen of Waterford, CT, USA.

Main Publications

Books (Croatian)

  1. Theatre Criticism or Inevitable Companion .
  2. What is Croatian Drama to Us?, Naklada Ljevak, Zagreb, 2008
  3. Losers' Genius in Our Town, Zagreb, Faculty of Philosophy, 2006
  4. New European Drama or Big Deception, Meandar, Zagreb, 2005,
  5. Affirmative American Drama or Long Live the Puritans, Croatian center of ITI, Zagreb, 2003
  6. Subversive American Drama or Sympathy for Losers, CDM, Rijeka, 1994

    Translations (other languages)

  7. "British Brutalism, the ‘New European Drama’, and the Role of the Director" NTQ, published by Cambridge University Press, 83/2005, p. 255-272
  8. "Csináljunk új európai drámát" Szinhaz, Hungary, July 2005
  9. "Wszystko ma swoje skutki", Dialog 1/2005. str. 122–135.

    Articles published in English (selection)

  10. “Sanja Nikcevic: The Comeback of Political Drama in Croatia: Or How to Kill a President by Miro Gavran“ in Political Performances. Theory and Practice. IFTR/FIRT Political Performances Working Group. Haedicke, Susan C., Deirdre Heddon, Avraham Oz and E.J. Westlake Amsterdam/New York, NY, 2009, IV, 379 pp. Pb: 978-90-420-2606-3
  11. “Croatian Theatre and the War 1992-1994” in Theatre and performance in Eastern Europe. The Changing Scene ed. Dennis Barnett and Arthur Skelton, The Scarecrow press, Plymouth, 2008.
  12. “How to Impose Violence as a Trend?“ u Theatre and Humanism in a World of Violence,, urednici Ian Herbert, Kalina Stefanova, St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, Sofia, 2009. 57–72.
  13. "Angles on the stage Religious Theatre in Croatia 1945-1989; 1999-1994; 1996-2002" in Europassion. Kirche-Konflikte-Menschenrechte. Rudolf Grulich zum 60. Geburstag, Gehard Hess Verlag bad Schussenried, 2006.
  14. “Actors Under Power” Theatre Year Book 2003 Theatre Abroad, ITI Japan Centre, Tokyo, 2003:160-167
  15. "Political Correctness, Identity, War and Lost Communication" in Lužina, Jelena ur. Balkan Theatre Sphere, Fakultet dramskih umjetnosti, Skopje, Maceodnia, 2003. p.89-95