Episode Details

Patrick Pacheco sits down with Tony Award–winning director “Darko Tresnjak” and the cast of “Archduke”—“Jake Berne,” “Adrien Rolet,” and “Jason Sanchez”—to explore Pulitzer Prize finalist “Rajiv Joseph’s” darkly comic reexamination of the assassination that ignited World War I. The play is now running Off-Broadway at the “Laura Pels Theatre.”

INSIDE "ARCHDUKE"

Set in the months leading up to June 28, 1914, the play follows three impoverished young men in Sarajevo who find themselves unexpectedly swept into history.

• Gavrilo Princip (Jake Berne) — sick, starving, and directionless, he is stunned to be offered food, shelter, and the promise of “mattering” for the first time in his life.
• Trifko Grabež (Adrien Rolet) — a lonely outsider whose desire for purpose makes him dangerously susceptible to the promise of glory.
• Nedeljko Čabrinović (Jason Sanchez) — impulsive, eager to belong, and easily persuaded by rhetoric that flatters his sense of grievance.

Under the manipulative guidance of Captain Apis (Patrick Page) and the Black Hand movement, the trio are fed ideology, nationalism, and fantasies of heroism—until they are convinced to carry out an act they barely understand. Joseph’s script exposes the absurdity, fragility, and accidental nature of revolution, reminding us how chance, desperation, and mythmaking can collide with catastrophic consequences.

Tresnjak’s staging—infused with elements of his own Sarajevo childhood—finds both humor and heartbreak in the extraordinary ordinariness of these young men.


INSIGHTS FROM THE ARTISTS

Jake Berne reflects on what draws Gavrilo in:
“Young boys today are looking for meaning… and find older men of power giving an idea of what is being a man, what is glory, what is meaning.”

Adrien Rolet describes Trifko’s hunger to matter:
“The promise of status, of glory, of becoming a legend when my character has felt rejected and alone for so long… fills me up with a sense of importance, a sense of purpose.”

Jason Sanchez speaks to Apis’ manipulative tactics:
“The captain is such a wordsmith… highlights what you don’t have, what you can have.”

Darko Tresnjak on the play’s examination of masculinity:
“It is a play about masculinity in this place. Toxic. In order to achieve that, you have to kill the mother, the sister, the woman inside of yourself.”

Tresnjak also shares how the production intersects with his personal history:
“The barrels on the stage—that’s my grandfather’s company. The music was my mom’s favorite songs.”

Watch the interview now on CUNY TV and YouTube.

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