Vlatko Perković, a member of DHK, doctor of science in the field of literature and theater, was born in 1936 in Klis. He attended high school in Split. He finished drama school in Sarajevo, and graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Zadar. He completed an extraordinary (postgraduate) study of directing and dramaturgy at the Faculty of Theater of the Academy of Arts of the Muse in Prague. He passed the practical part of his studies by directing his own drama Zavězněné odpoledne (Closed Afternoon – previously performed at the Croatian National Theater in Split) at the Divizna Theater in Prague. Director of the Croatian National Theater in Split and director of the Drama Ensemble at the Split Summer Festival. Occasional guest appearances in other theaters as well. As a drama (rarely opera) director and as a theorist, he researched the coexistence of sign systems of theatrical fact in texts of ancient dramatic literature, through Shakespeare (Hamlet) to contemporary drama (Miller, Genet, Beckett, Kamov, Petrasov Marović).
He lectured at the Split Department of the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. Since 1998, he has been a writer of theater criticism in Hrvatsko slovo, and then in Vijenac and Kulisa.eu. As an associate university professor, he taught the course Dramaturgy at the Academy of Arts in Split. In parallel with his previous directorial and current pedagogical work, he is a writer of theoretical discussions in dramaturgy and theatrology. He frequently appears in periodicals (Kolo, Republika, Possibilities, monographs), participates in scientific symposia. He is the author of several professional books, one novel and several plays.
Prizes:
Award at the Marulić Days, 1995, for the drama Blackmail;
City of Split Award, 1977, for the book Three Dramas;
Demeter Lifetime Achievement Award, 2016, Croatian Society of Theater Critics and Theatrologists;
Lifetime Achievement Award in Art “Emanuel Vidović”, 2016. Slobodna Dalmacija
Professional books: Dramaturgy and theatrical sign, Center for Cultural Activities – Zagreb, 1984; Manipulated Theater, Literary Circle Split 1993; How to protect literature from theater, Radio KL-Eurodom, Split, 2002; Dramaturgical functions and traps of open theater spaces, special print from the magazine Mogućnosti no. 1/3, 1995; Qualitative changes in the theatrical sign, MH Zagreb, 2004; Dramatic work – theatrical performance, MH Split, 2011; In the Gap of Ideology and Aesthetics (Croatian Drama 1945-1960), MH Dubrovnik, 2011; Theatrical Mousetrap, Literary Circle Split, 2012
Literary texts: Closed Afternoon (drama), magazine Mogućnosti br. 2, 1966; Blackmail, drama in two parts, present tense, Matica hrvatska Split, 1996; Three plays (and Sketch for one opera libretto), Logos Split, 1997, (Blackmail, Deus ex machina, Closed Afternoon, Sketch for libretto of the opera Closed Afternoon); novel I, Donna Gall or Waiting for Cesaria, Laus, Split, 2000, p. 412; second edition: Alfa, Zagreb, 2016; The tree said what it is (drama in two parts), Possibilities no. 4/6, 2005; Tomislav, Croatian King (drama in two parts with epilogue), Dugopolje City Library, 2008; Pustinja (drama in manuscript).
In addition to the libretto for the opera Closed Afternoon, he published a detailed “book of directing” (which is a unique case in our theatrical literature) with a description of the dramaturgical functions of kinetic scenography. He managed to bring the scenography to the factor of dramatic impact in some of his directings, especially in Antigone, the queen in Thebes by Tonča Petrasov Marović.
More in the monograph: Vlatko Perković – life in art, edited by Frano Baras, Naklada Bošković, 2013.