Rovinj Art & more presents "Buried Wonders": Leon Lučev and Jelena Graovac Lučev on August 20 at the Gandusio
Rovinj-Rovigno will host the multimedia theatre performance "Buried Wonders" on Thursday, August 20, 2026, one of the notable drama programs of this year's Rovinj Art & more festival. The performance begins at 9 p.m. at the Antonio Gandusio Theatre, the historic city venue in the center of Rovinj on the western coast of Istria. According to the official calendar of the Istria Tourist Board, the performance stars Leon Lučev and Jelena Graovac Lučev, is directed by Nina Violić, with music by Damir Martinović Mrle and Ivanka Mazurkijević. Admission is free, but the same source states that advance booking is required via the organizer's email address, ronald.braus@gmail.com. In this way, the festival brings audiences a theatrical evening that relies not only on the acting encounter between two performers, but on a combination of dramatic text, video, set design and music.
The performance was created based on a work by Monika Herceg, and the official website of the Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc in Rijeka describes it as a multimedia exploration of love, memory and illusion. At its center is not classical linear storytelling, but a space of memories in which facts, desires, fears and imagined possibilities of a shared life overlap. It is precisely such a structure that allows the intimate story of two people to expand toward more universal questions about transience, relationships and the way we shape our own past when we return to it. For the audience at the Gandusio, this means a performance that demands attention to the acting, but also to the image, sound and transformations of the stage space. "Buried Wonders" thus belongs to contemporary theatre that deliberately makes the boundaries between the stage and cinematic language permeable.
Three symbolic spaces: the Garden of Eden, the Bridge and the Apartment
According to the production description by the Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc, the dramaturgical construction of the performance develops through three symbolic spaces: the Garden of Eden, the Bridge and the Apartment. The Garden of Eden is associated with maturity, transience and a kind of confrontation with the end, while the Bridge becomes a space of encounter and the beginning of love. The apartment of the two lovers then assumes the central role, because within it different possibilities of a shared life unfold, from tenderness and passion to fear, distancing and the end. This division functions not merely as a change of setting, but as a way of organizing memories and emotional states. The viewer thus moves through scenes that may feel simultaneously real, imagined and retrospectively reconstructed.
The official description of the performance particularly emphasizes the role of video projections, which do not serve merely as background decoration. The set design and video are by Toni Soprano Meneglejte, and the projections create three-dimensional spaces in which the actors are visually incorporated, creating the impression of a "living image". In such a setup, the physical stage and the projected space become parts of the same whole, so the boundary between theatre and film is constantly shifting. According to the production information from the Rijeka-based Croatian National Theatre, the costume design is by Andrea Bistričić. The result is a performance in which meaning is constructed not only from the spoken text, but also from the relationship between body, image, music, light and space.
Such an approach is particularly suited to the themes of memory and illusion because the visual layer can simultaneously show what the characters are experiencing and what they are imagining. Instead of a strict separation of past and present, the stage language allows them to overlap. The viewer is offered not merely a reconstruction of one love story, but a series of possible versions of life and relationships. This is also where one of the key ideas of the performance lies: the question is not exclusively what really happened, but how life is remembered, reshaped and imagined when approached from an ending or turning point. For that reason, "Buried Wonders" can function both as an intimate drama and as a broader reflection on the human need to transform one's own experience into a story.
Leon Lučev and Jelena Graovac Lučev carry the intimate story of two people
The acting focus of the performance is concentrated on Leon Lučev and Jelena Graovac Lučev. Their stage relationship carries most of the emotional dynamics, while the multimedia elements expand the space in which those dynamics develop. Since the performance follows different phases and possible variations of the relationship, the performers move between closeness, distance, memory and imagined situations. Such a structure requires constant shifts in intensity from the acting, as well as precise coordination with the video and musical layer. The audience follows not only the dialogue between two characters, but a process in which their relationship is repeatedly reconstructed before the viewers.
In this production, Nina Violić directs the connection between Monika Herceg's text and the visual and musical elements, while the Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka defines the performance as a kind of "live theatrical film". This formulation aptly describes the way the production uses cinematic techniques without abandoning the immediacy of live performance. In film, framing and editing predetermine the audience's gaze, while theatre leaves viewers the possibility of choosing where to direct their attention. "Buried Wonders" works precisely with the tension between these two experiences: the projection shapes the image, but live performers are positioned in front of it and within it. Every performance therefore retains the unrepeatable quality of a theatrical event, even when part of its visual world relies on previously created video.
The music by Damir Martinović Mrle and Ivanka Mazurkijević is another supporting layer of the performance. In the official production announcements, the musical element does not appear as incidental accompaniment, but as part of the overall emotional and performative language. This is particularly important in a work dealing with memory, because sound can connect scenes and states without the need for literal explanation. Music thus participates in creating the rhythm between intimate moments, tension and shifts in perspective. Combined with video and acting, it creates a stage system in which each medium takes on part of the storytelling.
The performance arrives in Rovinj after a staging on Veliki Brijun
The Rovinj performance comes only a few days after a guest staging of "Buried Wonders" at the summer cinema on Veliki Brijun, where the performance was presented as part of the summer season of the Ulysses Theatre. In a review published on August 17, Glas Istre states that Lučev and Graovac Lučev built a performance through dialogue, monologue, introspection and the alternation of different stage worlds, with love as its enduring motif. The same review emphasizes the importance of the symbolism of the three spaces and the relationship between video projection and the action on stage. That recent performance provides additional current context for the guest appearance in Rovinj: this is a production that, during the summer of 2026, is appearing on several Adriatic theatre stages and in open-air cultural venues. Unlike the summer cinema on Veliki Brijun, the Gandusio will offer an enclosed and historically shaped theatrical setting.
The change of venue may be particularly interesting precisely for a performance that relies heavily on projections and a precisely composed image. In a classical theatre hall, the relationship between the audience, stage and projected elements becomes more concentrated, with attention directed toward the details of the performance. The Gandusio, moreover, is not a neutral venue without a history of its own. According to information from the Open University of the City of Rovinj-Rovigno, the building was completed in 1854 according to the concept and plans of the then mayor Nicolo de Callifi. Throughout its history it bore several names, and from the first half of the 20th century it has been associated with the name of Antonio Gandusio, a theatre and film comedian born in Rovinj in 1873.
Over the decades, dramas, comedies, operas, operettas, lectures, gatherings and film screenings have been held in this hall, making it a space whose function has long extended beyond a single art form. That is precisely why a contemporary multimedia performance such as "Buried Wonders" is an interesting continuation of such a tradition. A production combining theatrical acting and cinematic language enters a building that itself has historically served both theatre and cinema. This encounter between an old performance space and a contemporary stage approach gives the Rovinj guest appearance an additional dimension, without the need to turn the historic setting into mere scenery.
The eighth edition of the Rovinj Art & more festival combines different art forms
"Buried Wonders" is part of the eighth edition of the Rovinj Art & more festival. In an interview with Glas Istre published in July 2026, the festival's founder and artistic director Ronald Braus explained that the original idea was to connect high-quality artistic programs with different settings in Rovinj and, during the summer, bring together established performers while also opening space for new projects and collaborations. According to him, the festival has expanded its program over the years and now includes concerts, theatre performances, exhibitions, film screenings and other content. This year's edition opened with an opera gala program at the Church of St. Francis, while theatre remains one of the important pillars of the summer schedule.
Braus described the festival as a "boutique festival", highlighting the closeness between the audience and performers as a key value. Such a concept is also visible in the choice of venues: programs are not concentrated at a single large festival location, but distributed among the theatre, churches, halls and other urban settings. In this way, artistic content is connected with the architecture and character of the city, while audiences experience different programs under different spatial conditions. In the case of "Buried Wonders", the choice of the Gandusio seems logical because the performance requires a controlled stage space, while at the same time gaining the historical framework of one of Rovinj's recognizable cultural institutions. The festival therefore treats the city not merely as a venue, but as an active part of the program's identity.
The programmatic breadth of Rovinj Art & more is also important because it does not reduce the summer cultural offering to a single genre. Theatre, classical and chamber music, film screenings and exhibitions attract audiences with different interests, while individual events can complement one another. Official calendars for 2026 show that the festival program continues after August 20: already on August 26, the Gandusio is scheduled to host the play "Prima facie", performed by Nataša Janjić Medančić and produced by Petit teatar and Teatar EXIT. "Buried Wonders" is therefore not an isolated guest appearance, but part of a broader series of stage and artistic events during the Rovinj summer.
Practical information for the audience
The performance of "Buried Wonders" will take place on Thursday, August 20, 2026, beginning at 9 p.m. at the Antonio Gandusio Theatre in Rovinj-Rovigno. The Istria Tourist Board states that admission is free with advance booking at ronald.braus@gmail.com, which is also listed in the official calendar as the contact for the Rovinj Art & more festival. Since this is a free program requiring advance booking, interested visitors should arrange their reservation before arriving at the theatre rather than relying solely on seat availability immediately before the start. The official announcement by the Istria Tourist Board does not list any commercial ticket sales for the performance itself. Any possible changes to the schedule or admission arrangements should preferably be checked in the current official calendar of the organizer and tourist boards.
For visitors coming to Rovinj-Rovigno specifically because of the festival program, accommodation offers in Rovinj-Rovigno may also be useful, particularly during August when the city has an intense summer rhythm of events. Accommodation, however, is not linked to reserving a place for the performance, so admission to "Buried Wonders" should be arranged separately through the contact provided by the organizer. The theatre is located in the central city area, making it possible to combine the evening performance with other cultural activities in the historic center. International visitors may also find it useful to keep in mind the bilingual name of the city, Rovinj-Rovigno, which is regularly used by official local institutions and in event calendars.
"Buried Wonders" brings to Rovinj a contemporary theatrical expression based on a strong textual foundation, two actors and the carefully coordinated combination of image, music and performance. In the program of a festival that cultivates different artistic disciplines, this performance occupies a place between intimate drama and multimedia experimentation. Its structure through the Garden of Eden, the Bridge and the Apartment transforms a love story into a space for reflecting on memory, possibilities and transience, while video and music expand what happens between the two performers. Following the recent performance on Veliki Brijun, the guest appearance at the Gandusio offers a new spatial interpretation of the same material. For the audience in the hall on August 20, the central question will not necessarily be what in the story is real and what is imagined, but how those two worlds are transformed on stage into a shared experience.
Sources:
- Istria County Tourist Board - official event calendar with the date, time, location, performers and information about free admission with advance booking (link)
- Tourist Board of the City of Rovinj-Rovigno - official announcement of the Rovinj Art & more event and basic information about the performance "Buried Wonders" (link)
- Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc - description of the performance, creative team, dramaturgical structure and multimedia concept of the production (link)
- Open University of the City of Rovinj-Rovigno - history and role of the Antonio Gandusio Theatre (link)
- Glas Istre - interview with Ronald Braus about the eighth edition, development and program identity of the Rovinj Art & more festival (link)
- Glas Istre - review of the performance of "Buried Wonders" on Veliki Brijun on August 16, 2026, and description of the performance's stage approach (link)