13.11.2025

On November 13, 2025, at the “Hadi Shehu” City Theatre, the play Woyzeck returned for the audience in Gjakovë, offering a powerful and deeply moving theatrical experience. Among the spectators were students from “Hajdar Dushi” High School, who actively participated in a lively discussion after the performance, reflecting on the profound themes explored in the play.

Woyzeck’s life is a painful poem of individual tragedy—a story of contempt and abuse that leads to disintegration and self-destruction. From Georg Büchner’s original dramatization and Jack Thorne’s contemporary adaptation, Zana Hoxha presents a universal and emotionally intense version of this story, turning Woyzeck into a symbol of alienation and dehumanization.

On the stage designed by Grace Rumsey, invisible darkness, cold colors, and plastic materials create a rigid and stark atmosphere, reflecting the character’s captivity and the absence of freedom. Hoxha’s direction focuses on the protagonist’s psychological state, showing how violence and trauma experienced since childhood push Woyzeck toward a tragic fate: a silent soldier, an experimental object, a victim of a world that uses him but refuses to recognize him as equal.

Yet Woyzeck is not only an individual portrait of tragedy. It is a powerful call to society to reflect on injustice, violence, alienation, and the importance of mental health care. Through the emotional intensity of the scenes and the actors’ performances, the audience is invited to consider our collective responsibility and the strength of solidarity.

This staging, a co-production of “Hadi Shehu” Theatre and Artpolis, supported by the Municipality of Gjakovë and UNFPA, reaffirmed the transformative power of art to open dialogue, raise awareness, and touch the hearts of the audience.