Tena Stivicic -  Interview  - I Can't Get Away from London
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TENA STIVICIC

I can’t get away from London

Zagreb dramatist and writer in the British capital has seen all dreams come true: she gained a master's degree, she fell in love and wrote a play 'Fragile', which premiered last week at the Arcola Theatre in London.

For Zagreb dramatist and writer Tena Stivicic 5th September was one of the happiest days in her life.

Her play  "Fragile", which described the life of Balkan immigrants in London, premiered at the Arcola Theatre in London on September 4th 2007. Kisses, cards and gifts from friends were the most beautiful reward for everything she had achieved in the past four years, living in the British capital. Daughter of playwright and screenwriter Ivo Stivicic, Tena went to study for an MA in drama writing at Goldsmiths College, London in 2003. She found doors opened there for numerous business opportunities, so she decided to stay.

Tena celebrated her 30th birthday just a day after the successful premiere of her play with friends in a Turkish restaurant: among the many gifts and greeting cards she received that evening, her favourite was a silver ring. It was a gift from her boyfriend Douglas Henshall, with whom she began a relationship two years. Although, due to working commitments,  the 41-year-old Scottish actor is not able to attend the the promotion of Odbrojavanje (an anthology of Tena's monthly columns published in the magazine Zaposlena), on the 20th September in Zagreb, he will surely be sending Tena his congratulations.

Neighborhood from Only Fools and Horses

-  The British way of using  every opportunity to send cards  seemed ridiculous  to me at first, but with time I got used to it and accepted it as part of their tradition - Tena said, adding that she is growing  accustomed to the London way of life.

The girl from the centre of Zagreb was in for a big shock when she first saw the apartment where she would be spending her postgraduate year.  She had found the apartment on the internet, but it was situated in New Cross, London, where poverty and delinquency is widespread.

- New Cross is near to Peckham, in which the comedy series "Only Fools and Horses" is set. Therefore, I often joke that my first neighbours were Del Boy and Rodney Trotter - says Tena, who shared the apartment with four roommates:  two artists, one from Norway and the other from Ghana and two English social workers. Today she is still in touch with them, and often remembers how they got along well together and cooked frozen food.

- The apartments we rented had meters which controlled the consumption of gas or electricity: you had to buy a coupon to put in the meter so you got as much energy as you paid for. So there we were, and we took it in turns to purchase coupons, until one day the meter stopped working: it was New Year’s Eve 2003, when the temperature was below zero, and at that time of year in London, everywhere was closed for the holiday. And so we, mostly, spent these four days in bed shivering under quilts. I was so stiff that I got sore muscles. However, none of this bothered me, as I was always writing. But when my mother Mirjana first came to visit and saw the kind of neighborhood her only child was living in, she wanted to drag me home. In time, she became calmer because she knew  I was happy and surrounded by people who cared about me .-.

One evening Tena was attacked in front of the house, a thief, whom she could see approaching her from behind snatched her all the money she had with her. At that time she began to write the drama "Fragile," which, in addition to the London stage was performed earlier this year by the Slovenian Mladinsko Theater in Ljubljana and last year in the form of a radio play broadcast on Croatian Radio. It will soon be produced in a theatre in Cologne.

- Although "Fragile" has autobiographical elements, at the time I wrote it, I was having trouble with finance. Tuition cost £8,000. I received a donation from a small Croatian company, part of the costs were also “covered” by  scholarships from Vjesnik and HTV, but the rest I had to find for myself. Because money was scarce I was not able to go out much, but sometimes I treated myself by going to a show or a tour of a museum. –

Tena recalls that shortly after arriving in the UK she began to think and dream in English. She had often said she knew that one day she would be living abroad and admits that, because of its cosmopolitan and creative trends, London has always been the most attractive destination. In 2004, after completing her master’s degree she spent five months in Switzerland, near Bern Biel, where she received a scholarship to stay as writer in residence thanks to the play "Can’t Escape Sundays.

- No, I could not get away from London - she says. - In Switzerland, I had ideal conditions for writing and all expenses paid, but I couldn’t wait for a good excuse to go back to that city. In early 2005, I received an invitation to join the project Paines Plough project, for young writers, and returned to London, this time to Blackheath. My roommate was Jelena Vukmirica, daughter of actor Zeljko Vukmirice, who was then the master of acting. Soon I began to earn some money. My agent, Joe Phillips found me work, so I wrote stories, short plays and theatrical adaptations, and I now have an income from performances and copyright.

As her life is associated with the theatre, it is not surprising that the theatre is where she found love. Douglas Henshall, who starred in the television series "Dalziel and Pascoe" and "Anna Karenina" and films like "Orphans" and "If Only", was introduced to Tena two and a half years ago at the premiere of her short drama "Broken Voices" at Covent Garden.  They now live in a flat in Islington, a neighbourhood known for its beautiful parks, small shops and restaurants.



















Tena likes Douglas' native city of Glasgow, because it is reminiscent of Zagreb, and he also likes Croatia. This summer they were together in Brijunima, where Tena first worked with her father: Ivo Stivicic at  the Ullysses Theater on their play Drunken Night 1918. What they have together is precious, even though he is her most honest critic.





















Gloria magazine - September 30th 2007