Kerempuh Theater

After the Second World War, the first Zagreb cabaret was called 'Kerempuh's Clear Theater' (1949-1950), organized by the newspaper 'Kerempuh', and operated in the Sindikata hall (now the 'Tvornica' club) with actors from the Croatian National Theater. The program consists of short plays, comic ballets and Kerempuh's conference (Borivoj Šembera). This is the time of Tito's 'divorce' with Stalin, so part of the program has a politicized satirical tone ('Resolution', 'Choir of Dervishes'). Cabaret 'Kerempuhovo vedro kazalište' will perform three programs (about 50 plays) and after a year of work will be named 'Komedija', so it will move to Kaptol where it still successfully nurtures comedy and comic musical.

'Jazavac' (today 'Kerempuh') will open its doors on March 25, 1964 in Medulićeva Street No. 2, as a cabaret in a cafe, with the audience at the tables, where dinner is served after the program. The cabaret has an original interior with humorous decorations by Reisinger, Lončarić, Voljevic and Bourek, and witty aphoristic riddles can be solved on paper tablecloths, so it is significantly different from the cabaret we had before the Second World War.

As the initiators of ‘Kerempuh’s Clear Theater’ and ‘Badger’, I can testify that they went through similar underestimating doubts and doubts as the cabaret between the two wars. For example, the directorate of the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb would ban its students from working in 'Jazavac' in 1964, much like Vladimir Treščec, once the HNK's intendant and later the royal grand prefect in 1921, forbade members of the theater to participate in any bars and varieties. '- read: cabaret. Apart from aesthetic doubts, in the case of 'Jazavac', which operates in a one-party system, there will be suspicions of an ideological nature, so 'Jazavac' will close its doors as early as 1967, to continue its work after an ironic protest in the form of a printed obituary and a three-month break. .

The first acting ensemble of 'Jazavac', as with cabaret before the war, consisted of borrowed actors from institutional theaters: Branka Strmac, Đurđa Ivezić, Ivo Kadić, Ivo Serdar, Špiro Guberina, Boris Pavlinić and Boris Festini. Cabaret collage is directed by Nikola Petrović.

It is not immodest to say that it was our theater that did the most to affirm comedy and new comediographers, as a genre according to which there was and still is a rather repulsive attitude as a less valuable literary discipline.