Roland Domagoj Marin | First Year | Gryffindor

On the 13th day of May 2007, the cantankerous secretary of the Dover Register Office duly solemnised the marriage of two recently naturalised British artists: Marko Marin and Marie-Claire Poitrenaud. The long-standing and rather turbulent relationship between the youngest and prodigal son of a Dalmatian textile dynasty and the sole daughter of a line of culture barons from Nice, which began at a drama academy in Paris, has thus been blessed under the sacred halo of the ink and brush of bureaucracy. Hallelujah!

Like many artsy couples, Roland's parents, too, were of the conviction that having children was a terrible act of selfishness, a sign of immense banality, and a traditional, therefore abhorrent, custom. Marko and Marie-Claire were unyieldingly convinced that it was not their rightful share of the world to be crushing bores, i.e., parents. Yet, almost seven years later, the biology and the midlife crisis gloriously and jointly prevailed. In November 2013, Roland was born. Hallelujah!

The boy named Roland and Domagoj, respectively. The French name came first for simply two reasons: (i) Marko was not at the hospital on the night of the birth as he was on stage (so he had to be punished), (ii) they thought it was a nice sign of anti-patriarchy to prioritise the mother's culture (it was just an intellectual pretext).

Born into a cultured and artistic atmosphere, Roland spent his early childhood in a house where Croatian was mixed with French and English. His parents, regarding schooling as a form of modernist indoctrination project, provided him with an exceptionally free formative environment. Roland consequently sustained frequent broken limbs, primarily his arm, resulting from incidents such as falling off a bicycle or from a tree. He flourished in a broad social circle, but far from his blood relatives (as neither parent was in contact with their own), playing his mother's piano on stage, reciting his father's memorised monologues for a laugh in front of fellow artists, and dashing about the streets.

Marko Marin (1969)

He was born in Split, Croatia, as the sixth child of a wealthy textile family. In 1987, he went to Paris to study at the cours d'art dramatique René-Simon. Following his graduation in 1990, he ventured into theatre life with Marie-Claire, his fellow alumni & romantic partner. In 1994, having split up with her, Marko took the Conservatoire entrance exams. He left his studies there halfway through and joined Artistic-Athévains. In 1999, he entered into a civil partnership with his then-partner, Léandre Ouvrard. Some time after this relationship ended in 2000, Marko reunited with Marie-Claire, and he moved to Dover, England. There, he joined Marie-Clarie's private theatre called Phare & Stage.

Marie-Claire Poitrenaud-Marin (1970)

She was born in Nice as the only daughter of an orchestra conductor father and an oboe virtuoso mother. During her years studying drama in Paris, she decided that her real interest lay not so much in acting but in theatre directing. Nonetheless, she pursued a career as an actress for a time. In the year 2000, she severed ties with her parents and abandoned acting as she relocated to Dover. There, she established an independent, bilingual theatre company named Phare & Stage, taking on the role of director both for the establishment itself and for the plays staged there.

CONDY. What are you hurt my Lord high Admiral?
ADMIRALL. I my good Lord, shot through the arme.
NAVARRE. We are betraide, come my Lords, and let us goe tell
the King of this.
ADMIRALL. These are the cursed Guisians that doe seeke our death.
Oh fatall was this mariage to us all.
.................They beare away the [olde] Queene [of Navarre] and goe out.

It was a cool October day in 2021. Marlowe's play, The Massacre at Paris, was having its season premiere at the family theatre in Dover, with his father in the lead role and his mother serving as director. In one scene, the elderly actor playing the Admiral forgot his lines. Roland had watched the rehearsals for this scene countless times and noticed that the actor, panicking, couldn't even hear the cue whispered to him from backstage. The line the actor was supposed to say was "Oh, fatal was this marriage to us all," and Roland knew it. He couldn't help but move his lips as he recited the line. The other actor tried to salvage the situation, but the script required him to make the Admiral say the line. Roland felt deeply embarrassed, both for the actor playing the Admiral and for the reputation of the family business. That heavy curtain suddenly broke free from its ropes and closed, magically. "Technical issues," they announced to the audience, though it was never clear what technique exactly had failed.