The Glembays

"The Glembays" (1929) by Miroslav Krleža — Croatia's most significant author and one of the most influential European modernists of the 20th century — combines psychological drama with social critique and verbal baroque. The action unfolds in a single night, between one and five in the morning, in the home of the banker Ignjat Glembay, where the family gathers to celebrate the jubilee of the Glembay joint-stock company. In the tradition of Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekhov, Krleža dissects the bourgeois family as a historical and economic entity — a stage on which capitalism, patriarchy and moral decay collide. The Glembays' wealth rests on abuse, fraud and death; far more than a Zagreb family, they are an allegory of European bourgeois decadence. Leone, the artist and rebel, the returning prodigal son, is the family's tragic conscience: his confrontation with his father and his young stepmother, Baroness Castelli, unleashes a volcano of truths that shatters the fragile family façade. Directed by one of the best-known contemporary Croatian directors, Ivica Buljan; starring Dejan Donkov, Teodora Duhovnikova, Ana Papadopoulou and Plamen Dimov (IKAR Award 2026 for Best Leading Actor). Performed with English subtitles, running time 3 hours (with an interval), not recommended for under-14s.