Popovski's eclecticism and his ability to approach a literary subject without fear, playing freely with the motifs that the text ''lets him use'' are all signs that with this play too Gavella Theatre will embark upon an exciting and imaginative theatrical journey. After all, there is no other way, for ''in his airy ruthlesness, adventurous egotism and attractive immorality, Peer Gynt is the Don Quixote of free enterprise'', a hero of a text that holds in its many layers ''so many generally acceptable characteristics that the Japanese audience declared it 'typically Japanese'''.

At ''The Days of Macedonian Theatre'' held in 2006 in Gavella, when Skopje Drama Theatre presented its three productions, the theatre-goers in Zagreb were able to see two plays directed by Alexander Popovski: Goran Stefanovski's Proud Flesh and Molière's Don Juan. Both had shown that behind them stood a director who didn't want to modestly ''transfer the text to the stage'', but approached it as a model he wished to play with and transpose it into visually impressive images on the set. We believe that Shakespeare's classic is a play that invokes precisely that kind of directorial approach, because the play's vividness is unquestionable and its imaginative interpreters are imperative.

The theatre-goers in Croatia were acquainted with the work of Alexander Ogarev a few years ago when ''A. S. Pushkin'' theatre from Moscow perfomed the play ''The Clergyman's Children'', based on the text by Mate Matišić, at Marulić days in Split and afterwards in Zagreb Youth Theatre.

Imbued with authentic sadness and a gentle, warming humour, this text, among other things, is a peace-offering and as such has a healing effect on those who are willing to surrender to it. Directed by Dario Harjaček, the director of such notable titles as ''Three Sisters'' and ''The Piano Teacher'', Alabama addresses the audience directly and inquiringly, willing to talk about the reality that hurts us and yet we continue to live it. It has been written about this text which won the ''Marin Držić'' award in 2008: ''Davor Špišić strives to put back together the fragments of a family, to reconcile the irreconcilable and bring back a glimpse of hope, which he eventually succeeds to do in the manner of a true craftsman.''

The co-production of Gavella Theatre and Virovitica theatre, one of the most successfull smaller playhouses outside Zagreb, which can boast a constant number of six premières per year and around 200 performances in a season, was created out of the need to share ''the desire to perform'' with another playhouse and their own respective ensembles. Not to size each other up, but to unite forces.