NEWS ARCHIVE
9th March 2010
REHEARSALS FOR THE PLAYS HYSTERIA AND RECORDS FROM THE UNDERGROUND HAVE STARTED
Hysteria or Fragments of Analysis of Obsessive Neurosis is a play written by the celebrated British writer and director Terry Johnson. Terry Johnson has received numerous awards for the best playwright, like: Award "Oliver" for best comedy 1994 and 1999, "Writer of the Year" 1995, Award "Critics' Circle Theatre" for the best new play in 1995, two theatre awards by the Evening Standard, the Award "Writers' Guild” for the best play 1995 and 1996...
His plays are staged on the West End, while he is best known to our audience by the play and film script the Graduate. The play Hysteria is about the meeting of Salvador Dali and Sigmund Freud in 1938, a year before Freud's death. The premiere in London was in 1993. The Belgrade premiere, on the stage Studio YDT will be played by Mladen Andrejević (Sigmund Freud), Goran Jevtić (Salvador Dali), Suzana Lukić (Jessica) and Nebojša Ljubišić (Abraham Yehuda). The play is directed by Ivan Vuković. The premiere is announced for April.
Director Ana Djordjevic will set the play Records from the Underground by F.M. Dostoevsky, on the stage of the Theatre "Bojan Stupica". Let’s remember that Ana Djordjevich set the dramatization of Laza Lazarevićs story The Kreuter Girl with great success on this stage. After the success with the Serbian classics, she turned to the World heritage, to explore a new way of thinking on marginal emotional and social connections.
The cast is: Srdjan Timarov, Marko Baćović, Jelena Trkulja, Marinko Madžgalj, Bojan Lazarov, Đorđe Marković and Slobodan Tešić.
28th February 2010
ENTHUSIASTS TOURED THE VOLKSTEATER
The two days long touring of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre within the program the Best from the East! (Die Besten aus dem Osten!),organized by the Viennese Volkstheater, was last night successfully terminated. The play Enthusiasts (Sanjari), by the Austrian playwright Robert Musille and directed by Milos Lolich, held the central place in both of the evening programmes, 26th and 27th February, taking the audience by heart. Tickets for both evenings were sold out. A filled hall of the Volkstheater Hundsturm followed the play's story in complete silence, greeting the cast with a long and intense applause on the end.
The mini-festival was opened by the director of Volkstheater Michael Schotenberg, who greeted his guests and called the Serbian Ambassador Milovan Božinović to speak to the audience. The program Best from the East! is regularly organized every half a year by the Volkstheater, dedicating it each time to another country. So, this 6th
edition of the festival was entirely dedicated to a presentation of Serbia. Besides the playing of Etnhusiasts, the mini-festival also presented authors who connect the two cultural environments through their work. Barbi Markovic and Sandra Gugic read parts of their works – Barbi Markovic from her novel Izlaženje (Ausgehen), which gained its popularity in Austira immediately after translation into German (published in Serbia by Redne). Sandra Gugic read from her prose Eine kurze Geschichte über eine lange Fahrt (Kratka istorija jednog dugog putovanja), which have been awarded by the Austrian Award for Literature. The actors of the Volkstheater presented parts of the novel Veliki fajront (the Big Ending) by Emilija Andrejević, and a part of the drama Pomorandžina kora (the Orange Peel) by Maja Pelević.
29th January 2009.
THE PLAY ABOUT MIRJANA AND THE ONES AROUND HER
The first performance of the play by a young Croatian playwright Ivor Martinic, The Play About Mirjana and the Ones Around Her, directed by Iva Milosevic, will take place on Bojan Stupica Stage on February 18th. The cast comprises Mirjana Karanovic, Jelena Petrovic, Branka Petric, Marko Bacovic, Andjelika Simic, Fedja Stojanovic, Cvijeta Mesic and Bojan Lazarov.
The main character (Mirjana) lives in a time of her own, and the other characters gravitate around her, appearing when she thinks of them. As the life has grown faster, people do more living or they believe they do more living and somehow it all turns into a chaotic state in which it is not always clear what has happened and if it has happened at all. Even our relations with people are different between themselves, we are open to some, we cheat others and love yet others. The question is who we are or whether we are only what we are in relations with other people, when we are only what the people around us are themselves.
Ivor Martinic
I like the title of The Play About Mirjana and the Ones Around Her. The play creates a world that is completely unreal, composed of Beckettesque feelings of a lack of meaning of living. It allows us to project our repressed feelings of anxiety about absence of something very important in our lives onto the characters and thus draw the hidden up to the surface. What the actors and I work with is observing the extreme in seemingly non-dramatic lives. We call our characters ‘the little people’. They agree to moderation of lives that leads to complete mechanisation and objectification of being, whose effect is forgetting how to communicate with other beings, sinking into repetition, into a life as an imitation of a series of everyday rituals that follow an imposed script. You copy without even realising why you do it. The art of enjoying the diversity can bring about the fullness of living. One mustn’t fear being different, one must learn from it. The backbone that carries us will not be lost through that. On the contrary!
Iva Milosevic
29th January 2009.
ENTHUSIASTS IN VIENNA
Following the great success at Bitef Festival (Grand Prix Mira Trailovic) the play Enthusiasts by Robert Musil, directed by Milos Lolic, has been invited to the international festival The Best of the East organised by Volkstheater from Vienna (Austria). The goal of the festival is to promote the new vision of theatre and new playwriting from South, East and Central Europe. The first Festival took place two years ago. The rhythm of this festival is somewhat uncommon in our region, but is increasingly present at European festivals. The plays are not shown in blocks, but instead during two different weekends within a theatre season. Theatres from Romania, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia have been presented so far. This is the first presentation of a Serbian theatre at this Festival. We would like to remind you that the festivals of similar orientation, e.g. Biennale of Bonn and Wiesbaden Festival entitled New European Plays, or for example the competition of MBH from Vienna, have significantly contributed to promoting Serbian theatre and Serbian playwriting.
29th January 2009.
ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 26TH, AT EIGHT PM, BILJANA SRBLJANOVIC AT BURGTHEATER
Burgtheater (Vienna, Austria) organises a series of talks Kakania – a New Poets’ Republic with relevant writers who make a significant contribution to freedom of speech and understanding between peoples of Europe. The third talk in this series will be with our playwright Biljana Srbljanovic, at 8 PM on Tuesday, January 26. Moderator of the talk is Michael Fleischhacker, editor of the influential ‘Die Presse’. Two previous talks were held with the Hungarian writer Peter Nadas and Polish writer and journalist Andrzej Stasiuk.
The term ‘Kakania’ is borrowed from Musil’s novel Man Without Qualities as a metaphor for spiritual and geographical space of Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which could also be viewed as a spiritual space of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe in the context of spreading European ideas and spiritual and cultural meeting of European peoples.
Under the management of a new and ambitious manager, director Mathias Hartman, Burgtheater has once more become one of the most visited, most artistically provocative and media covered among all Viennese theatres, with projects (Kakania – a New Poets’ Republic among them) that try to view a broader social and cultural context of its community.
28th December 2009.
REHEARSALS FOR THE PLAY DRAMA O MIRJANI I OVIMA OKO NJE (THE DRAMA ABOUT MIRJANA AND THOSE AROUND HER) BY IVOR MARTINIĆ
The Drama about Mirjana and those around her (Drama o Mirjani i ovima oko nje)is a touching, exiting and gentle drama about women and the people around them, daughters, mothers, grandmothers, friends, former and present husbands and all this from the writing of a young, humorous and sensible man – Ivor Martinić.
Ivor Martinić is a graduate on the Department for dramaturgy on the Academy of Performing Art in Zagreb. He writes dramas, poetry, prose, screenplays for films. His texts have been translated into French, English, Spanish, Norwegian and Slovenian. He was awarded by the „Marin Držić“Award for his play Jednostavno: (nesretni) (Simply: (unhappy)), while his play Ovdje piše naslov drame o Anti (Here is the Heading for the Drama About Anta) received theFabriqué en Croatie award by the REZ Society. The play was performed on the Croatian radio and translated into French and English. It was thereafter shown on the world festival of young dramaturges World Interplay 2007 in Australia. It had its premiere on the stage of the Split City theatre Gradsko kazalište mladih.
The director of the play Drama About Mirjana and Those Around Her is Iva Milošević, known well by the audience through her very successful directorships of contemporary European and world playwrights like Mark Ravenhall(Shopping&Fucking), Sarah Kane(Phaedra’s Love) and Neil Labute The Bash. The costumes are this time made by Maja Mirković, the composer is Vlada Pejković. The play is performed by: Mirjana Karanović, Jelena Petrović, Branka Petrić, Marko Baćović, Anđelika Simić, Feđa Stojanović, Cvijeta Mesić and Bojan Lazarov.
The first performance of the play Drama about Mirjana and those around her is planned for February 2010, on the stage of the Teatar „Bojan Stupica“.
28th December 2009.
FESTIVALS AND AWARDS
The Yugoslav Drama Theatre began the Season of 2009/2010 with success by its participation on the 43rd BITEF Festival, when it received the Grad Prix „Mira Trailović” for the play Sanjari (The Enthusiasts).
Beside three successful premieres in this season – the La Dispute (Rasprava) by Pierre de Marivaux, directed by our guest from Romania Alexandru Darie, Nowhere for Now, written by the contemporary playwright Ana Lasić and directed by Dina Radoman, and Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy As You Like It, directed by Slobodan Unkovski, – the YDT has participated on the many international festivals. YDT has performed on the MESS Festival in Sarajevo, showing the play Kandid ili Optimizam (Candide or Optimism) as well ason the Autumn Festival, Festival de Otoño, playing the Phaedra’s Love. There were also many local festivals touring. The YDT participatedin the festival, „Borini pozorišni dani – Ženska stvar?“ in Vranje with the play It Had To Be So (Tako je moralo biti), where it received the Audience’s Prize for the Best play and the actress Anita Mančić got the Award for best performance. After this, the YDT participated on the theatre marathon held in Leskovac for the first time.
This year, the actress Anita Mančić also receive the prestigious biennial award for performance in the field of comic „Ljubinka Bobić“, for her role of Dorine in YDT’s play Tartuffe. The director Egon Savin received for the third time the Award “Bojan Stupica” for the best directorship, this time for the play So It had to Be (Tako je moralo biti). Last time he got it was also for the YDT production, The Merchant of Venice.
The YDT actor Vojislav Brajović was given the award Dobričin prsten (Dobrica Ring), which is the highest actor’s prize given for life achievements.
28th December 2009.
PROMOTION OF THE BOOK JUGOSLOVENSKO DRAMSKO POZORIŠTE – SAMIM SOBOM (THE YUGOSLAV DRAMA THEATRE – BY ITSELF)
The book written by Dragan S.V. Babić The Yugoslav Drama Theatre – By Itself (Jugoslovensko dramsko pozorište – samim sobom) will be presented to the public on Tuesday, 22nd December at 1 o’clock at the stage Studio YDT.
Direct testimonies of around forty significant artists, from a range of generations, who have contributed to the building of the theatre’s identity by their creations, were recorded and compiled by Dragan S.V. Babić on the beginning of 2008, during his work on the making of the documentary film trilogy about the Yugoslav Drama Theatre on the occasion of its 60th anniversary. Now the integral video-recordings of these dialogues have been transformed into this book.
Dragan S.V. Babić will talk about the book and the circumstances around it together with Mirjana Karanović, Goran Šušljik, Jovan Ćirilov, and the editors Gojko Tešić and Jelena Kovačević.
The book is a joint publishing venture made by Službeni glasnik and the Yugoslav Drama Theatre.
10th December 2009.
VOJISLAV BRAJOVIĆ RECEIVES THE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD ‘DOBRIČIN PRSTEN’
Vojislav Brajović received the Dobričin Prsten (Dobrica’s Ring) Award, awarded to actors for their overall work – lifetime achievement.
Jury members: prof. Predrag Bajčetić, Mira Banjac, Predrag Ejdus, Dušan Kovačević, prof. dr. Ljiljana Mrkić-Popović, prof. Vladimir Stamenković (president of the Jury), mr Ksenija Šukuljević Marković and honorary member dr. Ivana Simeonović Ćelić as a representative of the Philip and Madlena Zepter Fund, general sponsor of all events related to Dobricin Prsten Award – reached the decision on December 9th 2009 with majority of votes.
Vojislav Brajovic will receive the award on Saturday, December 26th, at noon, at Yugoslav Drama Theatre.
The award consists of: replica of the golden ring owned by Dobrica Milutinović that this actor received in 1937 from the Association of Actors of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the original of which is kept at the Museum of Theatre Art of Serbia, a unique parchment diploma, the work of painter and set designer Geroslav Zarić, and a monograph about the laureate.
10th December 2009.
‘LJUBINKA BOBIC’ AWARD TO ANITA MANČIĆ
On Tuesday, December 15, Anita Mančić will receive the Ljubinka Bobićc Award for the part of Dorine in the play Tartuffe by Moliere, directed by Egon Savin. The ceremony will take place on Ljuba Tadić Stage.
This award, established in memory of Ljubinka Bobićc, an actress memorable for her ethics and ability to perfect the parts she played with exciting details, to enrich her acting with novel elements in the fields of movement, speech and facial expression, of the comic and comedy in general, is awarded biannually for the best acting achievement in comedy. Ljubinka Bobić Award consists of a plaque with the portrait of Ljubinka Bobićc, a unique parchment diploma and a monetary grant.
President of the jury, Jelisaveta Seka Sablićc, will award the prize after the performance of Tartuffe at Yugoslav Drama Theatre.
10th December 2009.
‘KONSTANTIN OBRADOVIĆ AWARD’
Actress Mirjana Karanović has been awarded this prize, established in the year 2000 by Belgrade Human Rights Centre, for her contribution to furthering the culture of human rights. The jury consisting of Filip David, dr Vojin Dimitrijević and dr Vesna Pešić made a unanimous decision with the explanation that Mirjana Karanović has persistently and consistently contributed to raising the culture of human rights in Serbia and the entire region. ‘She has done it by emotionally and convincingly portraying women who suffered severe damage inflicted by people’s hatred and indifference, and also as a citizen who has not shied away from stepping out of her profession and speaking publicly in an effort to improve the society she lives in.’
‘Konstantin Obradović’ Award was established by Belgrade Centre for Human Rights in order to honour the memory of its founder and a longstanding deputy director, professor dr Konstantin Obradović, one of the leading Yugoslav and international experts on international humanitarian law and an active fighter for human rights, who died on March 10th 2000.
6th October 2009
The Enthusiasts (Sanjari) won the Grand Prix „Mira Trailović“
The play of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre The Enthusiasts by Robert Musil, directed by Miloš Lolić won the Grand Prix „Mira Trailović“ on the 43 Bitef 09 according to the decision of the International jury. The Jury consisted of: Patrice Pavis (president), Roland Shimmelphennig, Maja Pelević, Vladimir Aleksić and Oliver Frljić.
The Main Concurrence Program of this year’s Bitef Festival also showed the plays Sutra, (choreographed bySidi Larbi Cherkaoui), The Blue Dragon (directed by Robert Lepage), Brod za lutke – The Doll Ship (Ana Tomović), Airport Kids (Lola Arias and Stefan Kaegi), Odmor od povijesti – Vacation from History (Bacači sjenki, who won the Special Price), The Writer (Urlike Quade, Jo Strømgren), Kamp (Hotel Modern) and Karl Marx: Das Kapital, Volume 1 (Helgard Haug, Daniel Wetzel).
The Yugoslav Drama Theatre was awarded by Bitef’s Gran Prix for the first time in 1974 for the play Veseli dani ili Tarelkinova smrt (directed by Branko Pleša) and then again in 1991 for the play Pozorišne iluzije – L’Illusion comique (directed by Slobodan Unkovski). The last play was also awarded with the Award of Bitef’s Audience and the Politika’s Award.
The Politika’s Award has also been given to another of the YDT production in 1980, when the play Sumrak (directed by Jerzy Jarocki) received this prestigious price. Other Bitef’s Special Awards have been given to the plays Spring Awakening (directed by Haris Pašović in 1987) and Lažni car Šćepan Mali (directed by Dejan Mijač in 1993).
6th October 2009
Première of the play Rasprava (La Dispute) – the Beginning of a new season
The premiere of the play La Dispute by Pierre de Marivaux, directed by our guest from Romania Alexandru Darie will be 14th October on the Main stage „Ljuba Tadić”.
The play has come to being in a coproduction of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, the theatre Bulandra (Romania) and the Festival City Theatre Budva (Montenegro). The premiere was on the Festival City Theatre Budva on the 28th July this year and the critics wrote following for the occasion:
„The production La Dispute by Darie is(…) a dense anatomy of the back side of human nature, a penetrating discovery of temptations, weaknesses, passions, stumbling and human fracture, that do not betray Marivaux but, on the contrary, make him even more contemporary, present, more hopeless and as such more inspirational for contemplation.“
Ana Tasić, „Bol kao smisao života“ (Pain as the Sense of Life), Politika, 4th August 2009
„Temptations, jealousy and revenge in hard a confrontation happens on the stage while the battle for the Triumph of love is going on(...) La Dispute may also be considered as a story about Adam and Eve in „Eden’s garden of desire“ and of indecency as well. This is a story of the dangers that come up in youth. “
S. Pavlović, „Strasne scene digle temperaturu“ (Passionate Scenes Raised the Temperature), Dan, 30th July 2009
The Set and costume designer of the play is Oktavian Nekulai, the composer is Irina Dečermić, while the role list is populated by: Goran Šušljik, Hristina Popović, Anita Mančić, Sonja Vukićević, Suzana Lukić, Maša Dakić, Radovan Vujović, Marko Janjić, Milan Prljeta, Iskra Brajović and others.
6th October 2009
Kako vam drago (As You Like It)
Orlando leaves his elder brother Oliver, who has seized all of theirs father’s wealth. He challenges and wins a combat with the fighter of Friedrich, in whose service the greedy brother Oliver works, who also has snapped all of his brother the Duke Ferdinand’s land. On this occasion Rosalinda, the daughter of the dethroned duke, falls in love with the brave winner Orlando. He has to escape into the woods before the meanness of his brother and the usurpator Friedrich, while Rosalinda and her friends Celia, the daughter of Ferdinand, and run after him. They meet up with the duke in the woods, altogether with his suite, his shepards and women... And so this comic-family-love-political-pastoral, in one word, Shakespearian story begins.
The play As You Like It is directed by Slobodan Unkovski, the set designer is Miodrag Tabački, the costume designer is Maja Mirković and the composer is Irena Popović. The play is being performed by: Vojislav Brajović, Nebojša Glogovac, Nikola Đuričko, Nada Šargin, Sonja Kolačarić, Radovan Vujović, Boris Isaković, Marinko Madžgalj, Marko Baćović, Miodrag Radovanović, Dubravka Kovjanić, Milena Predić, Nikola Vujović and others.
6th October 2009
Also this year the YDT participates on the MESS
The play by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre Kandid ili Optimizam (Candid Or Optimism) according to Voltaire and directed by Aleksandar Popovski, participate on the 49th International Festival MESS in Sarajevo. This year the festival will take place 16 – 26th October when 25 plays from 14 countries will be performed within the four festival programs.
The Yugoslav Drama Theatre has been touring the MESS Festival several times. Plays like Phaedra’s Love (Fedrina ljubav) by Sarah Kane, directed by Iva Milošević as well as Hunting Cockroaches (U lovu na bubašvabe) by Janusz Glowacki, directed by Veljko Mićunović in 2008, then the Circus History (Cirkus Istorija) an independent project by Sonja Vukićević and the play The Locusts (Skakavci) by Biljana Srbljanović, directed by Dejan Mijač in 2007, The Doll Ship (Brod za lutke) by Milena Marković, directed by Slobodan Unkovski in 2006, Hamlet by William Shakespeare under directorship of Dušan Jovanović in 2005, Moliere – Another Life (Molijer – još jedan život) by Bulgakov, Moliere and Jovanović, directed by Dušan Jovanović in 2004 and The Powder Keg (Bure baruta) of Dejan Dukovski, directed by Slobodan Unkovski in 2001.
6th October 2009
YDT from July until October – Events Review
The Yugoslav Drama Theatre participated on two summer festivals with altogether 4 plays during the summer month of July. The summer touring begun with on the 4th Festival of Mediterranean Theatre Purgatorije in Tivat, Monetenegro, with the guest staging of the Merchant from Venice (Mletački trgovac) by William Shakespeare and directed by Egon Savin. The Merchant from Venice won the Award for the best play, equally shared with the play by the Gradskog kazališta „Gavella“ from Zagreb, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (San ivanjske noći) in the set of Aleksandar Popovski. The Award for the Best Acting Performance was given to Dragan Mićanović for his role of Porcia.
Later on, followed the touring on the Festival City Theatre Budva in Montenegro. Here, the YDT performed the play by Vida Ognjenović Don Krsto (which came into being as a coproduction of the YDT and the Festival City Theatre Budva in 2007), as well as the play Huddersfield by Uglješa Šajtinac, directed by Alex Chisholm together with a book-promotion of the work Biti u pozorištu (Being in Theatre) – Directors’ Styles in the Yugoslav Drama Theatre: Dejan Mijač, Slobodan Unkovski and Dušan Jovanović by Marina Milivojević-Mađarev.
The crown of this year’s thriving cooperation between the YDT and this international theatre festival in Montenegro was the play La Despute (Rasprava) by Pierre de Marivaux, directed by
Alexandru Darie.
International touring of the YDT continued in September. On the Festival „Demoludy“ in Poland, dedicated to contemporary drama of the former Yugoslavia region, organized by the Polish theatre Teatr im. Stefana Jaracza in Olstin, our theatre exhibited itself with great success performing the plays Huddersfield by Uglješa Šajtinac (directed by Alex Chisholm)and the play Barbelo, On Dogs and Children (Barbelo, o psima i deci) by Biljana Srbljanović (directed by Dejan Mijač).
The summer activities were terminated by the performance of the play The Enthusiasts (Sanjari) according to the drama of Robert Musil and directed by Miloš Lolić within the main competition programme of the 43 BITEF 09 (Belgrade International Theatre Festival).
20th September 2009
SERBIAN PARTICIPATION ON THE »DEMOLUDY« FESTIVAL
The international festival “Demoludy” closed ceremonially by the performance of Barbelo, On Dogs and Children by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre last night. The festival was organized by the Teatr im. Stefana Jaracza in Olstyn close to Warshaw and was dedicated particularly to the contemporary drama from the vicinity of the former Yugoslavia.
It is not typical for the Polish audience to cheer a play standing by ovations, which happened to the ensemble of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre and the playwright Biljana Srbljanović after the end of the play. Respectable Polish newspapers, like the Gazeta Wyborcza, compared the touring of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre with the Warsaw National Theatre and the director Dejan Mijač to the most respectable Polish directors of today Kristian Lupa and Jerzy Jarocky. The artistic director of the Festival Marcin Zawada reminded the attending the press conference that the actress Mirjana Karanović is renown and beloved in Poland by her role in the film Grbavica and that the play's set and costume designer Angelina Atlagić has been working in a multitude of European projects.
The night before the YDT performed the play Huddersfield by Uglješa Šajtinac, directed by Alex Chisholm and provoked an equal interest and success with the Polish audience. The critic Ada Romanovska (Nowa Siła Krytyczna) pointed out the precise and throughout directorship, singling particularly out the acting creation of Nebojša Glogovac, who was playing the character of the mentally ill Ivan, who, in the last instance and metaphorically, was the only one healthy person in the presented circumstances.
During the five Festival days public readings of the plays Pad (The Fall) and Supermarket by Biljana Srbljanović found place, provoking a particular interest of the audience.
Beside the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, the “Demoludy” Festival housed a touring from the Atelje 212 from Serbia with the plays Odumiranje and Pomoradžina kora, as well as theatres from Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The plays themselves and a rich additional program gave not only a chance to present the creativity of the southern Slavic regions to the Polish audience, but also an open space for a dialog between their guests.
September 14, 2009
POLAN ORGANIZES A LARGE THEATRE FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY DRAMA ORIGINATING FROM THE FORMER YUGOSLAV COUNTRIES
The Yugoslav Drama Theatre will perform with the plays Huddersfieldand Barbelo, on Dogs and Children on the international festival Demoludy which will be held 14-19th September in the Polish town Olstyn, organized by the Teatr im. Stefani Jarcza.
The festival Demoludy will present theatres from the previous Yugoslav countries: Serbia (YDT and the Atelje 212), Croatia (KUFER – Kazališna udruga frustriranih reditelja), Slovenia (Slovensko mladinsko gledališče, Ljubljana), Bosnia & Herzegovina (Kamerni teatar 55), which will all perform plays based on the works of contemporary playwrights. The festival will promote the contemporary drama theatre as well as public readings of Biljana Srbljanović, Dušan Kovačević, Matjaž Župančič and others, set by Polish directors. During the festival, there will be a number of workshops, meetings with the authors and conversations on the subjects of political independence in contemporary theatres and media.
The idea of the festival is to prepare a space for a multicultural dialogue in the Eastern-European countries. Past and heritage are only a symbolic point from which we have to start anew with our contemplations about our identities(...) The Festival Demoludy is an good opportunity to show what we are doing now and what do we have to offer to each other. It is also a chance to remember that we are not closed societies, but communities of people that live among the ruins of the Western civilization. Forgetting the political plays, we can learn how to speak, how to communicate through the paths of art, which is beyond stereotypes and historical resentment. The name of the festival is a self ironic gesture freed from resentment. We are open for all generations.
The word “demoludy“, which once was a pejorative word for the citizens of the former socialistic countries, we use as a gesture of rebellion towards mass culture.
The play Huddersfield by Uglješa Šajtinac, under the directorship of Alex Cheesholm is on the Festival’s program on Friday 18th September, while the play Barbelo, on Dogs and Children by Biljana Srbljanović, directed by Dejan Mijač, will be performed on the ceremonial closure of the festival, on Saturday 19th September.
During the festival there will be a public reading of the drama Pad (Fall) by Biljana Srbljanović under the directorship of Małgorzata Głuchowska, as well as of the play Supermarket, under the directorship of Ireneusz Janiszewski.
14th September 2009
ENTHUSIASTS ON BITEF
The play by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre Enthusiasts, made according to the drama by Robert Musil and directed by Miloš Lolić is participating in the main competition program of the 43 Bitef 09. It will be played on its home stage, in Teatar „Bojan Stupica“ on the 20th September at 8 pm. The play is performed by Nikola Vujović, Dubravka Kovjanić, Sena Đorović, Goran Jevtić, Feđa Stojanović, Cvijeta Mesić, Radovan Vujović and the pianist Srđan Marković.
The selectors of this year’s Bitef Jovan Ćirilov and Anja Suša have chosen to organize this year’s program under the slogan: Crisis of Capital – the Art of Crisis.
Beside the plays of the YDT and the play by SNP Boat for Dolls (Brod za lutke), there are plays from the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, Croatia, Norway, the Netherlands and Germany in the main program of this year’s Bitef.
The play The Blue Dragon (Plavi zmaj) by Robert Lepage, Quebec, Canada, will be staged on the Main stage „Ljuba Tadić“ on the 16th, 17th and 18th September, while Karl Marx: The Capital, directed by the members of the group Rimini Protokoll, Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel (Düsseldorf, Germany), will be played on the 24th and 25th September on the same stage.
29th April 2009
PREMIERE OF THE PLAY U MOČVARI (IN THE BOG OF CATS) BY MARINA CARR AND DIRECTED BY EGON SAVIN
I don’t think the world should assume that we are all natural mothers. And it does. I don’t think it’s such a big thing anymore, but the idea that you sacrifice everything for your children—it’s a load of rubbish. It leads to very destructive living and thinking, and it has a much worse effect on children than if you go out and live your own life... Having said that, I really do believe that children have to be protected. They have to be loved. Somewhere between the two, I think, something needs to be sorted out. The relationship between parent and child is so difficult and so complex. There’s every emotion there. We mostly only acknowledge the good ones. If we were allowed to talk about the other ones, maybe it would alleviate them in some way.
Marina Carr
The play by Marina Kahr U močvari (In the Bog of Cats), translated by Marija Stojanović and adapted and directed by Egon Savin will have its première on the 10th May on the Main Stage „Ljuba Tadić“. The Irish playwright Marina Carr, renown in Serbia for her play Portia Coclan (Malo pozorište „Duško Radović“), gained her world reputation on family dramas. The play In the Bog of Cats is also one of them. Marina Carr portraits her family tragedies with elements of black humour, physical brutality and a Becketian sense to human existence. The work of Marina Carr is specific in the fact that her dramas have allusions on Greek tragedies or are, loosely, adapted Greek myths. Play In the Bog of Cats (1998) is a free interpretation of Euripides’ Medea. The tragedy is often a consequence of a fatal lack of self-esteem, but Hester Swein dies of her self acknowledgement brought to the outmost. She is murdered by the truth, and she has always known that it will go that way.
The play is performed by: Tamara Vučković, Vojin Ćetković, Jasmina Avramović, Jelisaveta Sablić, Mihailo Janketić, Dubravka Kovjanić, Vesna Stanković, Miodrag Radovanović, Ljuma Penov, Nikola Jovanović and Đorđe Marković.
29th April 2009
PREMIERE OF THE PLAY NEBESKI ODRED (HIMMELCOMMANDO) BY ĐORĐE LEBOVIĆ AND ALEKSANDAR OBRENOVIĆ, DIRECTED BY MARKO MANOJLOVIĆ
Nebeski odred (Himmelcommando) happens in the lethal concentration camp Auschwitz, but this is not a play about the horrors of Auschwitz. It is a play about the power of life, about ways that life finds to triumph, against all odds, over evil and death. Life is simply always stronger.
Marko Manojlović
In the role cast: Miodrag Radovanović, Srđan Timarov, Aleksandar Đurica, Nikola Vujović, Goran Šušljik, Zoran Cvijanović, Petar Benčina, Nebojša Milovanović, Predrag Ejdus, Toni Laurenčić, Miloš Pjevač.
The artistic associates are: Vesna Štrbac (set design), Lana Cvijanović (costumes), Vlada Pejković (composer) and Ljiljana Mrkić-Popović (proof-reader).
The play Nebeski odred (Himmelcommando) is the first coproduction between the Yugoslav Drama Theatre and the festival Sterijino pozorje. The premiere of the play will be on this year’s Sterijino pozorje in Novi Sad.
The play by Đorđe Lebović and Aleksandar Obrenović Himmelcommando, performed by the theatre Srpsko narodno pozorište from Novi Sad received the first prize for domestic contemporary drama in 1957, granted for the very first time on the second festival Sterijino pozorje that year.
29th April 2009
INTERNATIONAL TOURING
The International Festival of Small Stages in Rijeka, Croatia
Moliere’s play Tartuffe, directed by Egon Savin opens the International Festival of Small Stages in Rijeka on the 3rd May. Ten plays from five European countries will participate the festival this year: Turbofolk, HNK by Ivan pl. Zajec; Seksualne neuroze naših roditelja (Our Parent’s Sexual Neurosis) by the National Theatre Belgrade; Tajbele i njeni demoni (Taybelle and her Demons), HKD Rijeka, Croatia; Bahantkinje (Bakhe), Dramski ansambl Splitskog ljeta, Croatia; Hamlet, Oskaras Koršunovas Theatre Vilnius, Lithuania; Kos, Kristalna kocka vedrine/Gradsko kazalište Sisak, Croatia; Onaj koji kaže da, onaj koji kaže ne (The One Who Says Yes, the One Who Says No), Volksbühne Berlin; Polet (The Flight), Zekaem, Croatia; Djevuška (Girl), Bela Pinter Company Budapest, Hungary. The International Festival of Small Stages in Rijeka was established in 1994 and has had an international selection since 1999.
Festival Nova drama (New Drama) in Bratislava
The play Barbelo, o psima i deci (Barbelo, on Dogs and Children) by Biljana Srbljanović, directed by Dejan Mijač tours the Festival New drama in Bratislava. The festival was established in 2005 as a festival of contemporary Slovakian drama, but holds an international selection from this year on. The Festival represents contemporary drama from a chosen foreign country and this year’s focus is on Serbia. Beside our play, the piece of the National Theatre in Novi Sad Brod za lutke (A Boat for Dolls), written by Milena Marković, will also be seen. Tribune discussions, lectures and reading of contemporary Serbian plays have been planned as well and the festival’s Guest of Honour is Alex Sierz, British critic, journalist and writer, and the author of the book In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. The Festival is organized by the Theatre Institute in Bratislava, in coproduction with the theatre Arena. The festival is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovakia.
29th April 2009
DOMESTIC TOURING
Sterijino pozorje
The Yugoslav Drama Theatre participates this year with two plays on the 54th festival of Sterijino pozorje. In the selection program of National drama is the play Švabica (The Kraut Girl) by Laza Lazarević, directed and adapted by Ana Đorđević. In the selection of National theatre is Voltaire’s Kandid ili Optimizam (Candide or Optimism), directed by Aleksandar Popovski.
The Festival’s duration is from 23rd May – 5th June, where altogether 23 plays will be staged in three categories: national drama, national theatre and international selection.
JoakimFest
The play Švabica (The Kraut Girl) by Laza Lazarević, directed by Ana Đorđević, participates on the 6th JoakimFest – festival of the best Serbian plays made according to dramas written by domestic authors. The festival is held annually from the 7th to 15th May in the city of Kragujevac, in the Knjaževsko-srpski teatar and this year’s main selector is Dragana Bošković.
16th April 2009
3rd APRIL – DAY OF YUGOSLAV DRAMA THEATRE
In relation to the Day of Yugoslav Drama Theatre, the YDT gave out its annual awards to the following:
Dragan Mićanović for the role of Tartuffe in the play Tartuffe by Moliere, directed by Egon Savin,
Boris Isaković for the role of Orgon in the play Tartuffe by Moliere, directed by Egon Savin,
Milica Mihajlović for the role of Moira in the play Prevođenje (Translating) by Brian Friel, directed by Dejan Mijač,
Nikola Vujović for the role of Thomas in the play Sanjari (The Enthusiasts) by Robert Musil, directed by Miloš Lolić,
Marija Vicković for the role of Ana in the play Švabica (The Kraut Girl)by Laza Lazarević, directed by Ana Đorđević,
Radovan Vujović for the role of Miša in the play Švabica (The Kraut Girl)by Laza Lazarević, directed by Ana Đorđević,
Lana Cvijanović for the costumes and special artistic contribution in the plays Kandid ili Optimizam (Candide or Optimism) and Švabica (The Kraut Girl),
Ana Đorđević and Miloš Lolić the Yugoslav Drama Theatre gave an equally shared Annual Award for their powerful searching vision, materialised through individual poeticism, but with a common youthful energy in their directorships of the theatre plays Švabica (The Kraut Girl)and Sanjari (The Enthusiasts)
Sloboda Mićalović-Ćetković received the Award for the Beauty of Speech Dr Branivoj Đorđević for her role of Elmira in the play Tartuffe by Moliere, directed by Egon Savin,
Radenko Matić, the chief of the Stage, received the Annual Award for an extraordinary contribution to the high standards of practise in our House.
The Yugoslav Drama Theatre and Raiffeisen Bank Belgrade gave Nikola Đuričko a Special Annual Award for his role of Candide in the play Kandid ili Optimizam (Candide or Optimism) by Voltaire, directed by Aleksandar Popovski, as well as for his broad, extraordinary contribution to the high artistic standards of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre.
Between April 3rd 2008 until April 3rd this year, the YDT have had seven premieres: Tartuffe by Moliere, directed by Egon Savin, The Castle by Franz Kafka in Dušan Bogović's dramatisation, directed by Nikola Zavišić, Kandid ili Optimizam (Candide or Optimism) by Voltaire, directed by Aleksandar Popovski, Sanjari (The Enthusiasts) by Robert Musil, directed by Miloš Lolić, Rugoba (The Ugly) by Marius von Mayenburg, directed by Marija Krstić, Prevođenje (Translations) by Brian Friel, directed by Dejan Mijač and Švabica (The Kraut Girl) by Laza Lazarević, adapted and directed by Ana Đorđević.
The Yugoslav Drama theatre played its very first play Kralj Betajnove (The King of Betajnova)by Ivan Cankar, under the directorship of Bojan Stupica on the 3rd April 1948, and therefore this date is celebrated as the Day of our theatre.
The speech made by the director of Yugoslav Drama Theatre Branko Cvejić in occasion of the Day of the Theatre 3rd April 2009 –
This place, this address, whatever its name, is since ever as if it has been predestined for spectacles. At first, there was a horse stable, a small, wooden stadium in which someone trained the horses and some others were actively watching, wasn’t that a spectacle, too? Then, on this same spot, there was a Parliament, all the way until 1937 the Assembly was assembling here. Speaking the truth, there was then no live television broadcasting, but I’m sure that it also was a real spectacle and a theatre play in its sense. Since 1937 there was a theatre here, named Manjež – with spectacles on the spot every evening and, finally, from 1948 until the present day, there is the Yugoslav Drama Theatre. All those 61 years: every evening there have been one, two, even three plays, every night there is a spectacle.
Today we celebrate our birthday, today we praise our successes, but we shall never forget the vision left to us by our founder Bojan Stupica, which are: quality, high artistic standards, a basic artistic intention and readiness to meet the highest challenges and demands. We will not excuse ourselves with general, global crisis. We shall wish for always having something extraordinary on our stages, expressing the complex art of our time, as Mr. Ćirilov would put it. Even the problems, when they happen to us, the mistakes we make, come – we hope – only because of our high demands and ambitions. We go forward. In front of us are new plays, but also touring on festivals in Serbia, in the neighbouring countries and in our, we believe, new homeland Europe. But, before all this, there is, in deed, another new Sterijino pozorje (the most prestigious Serbian theatre festival in Novi Sad). It is good that we participate on it with even two plays, but even if it wasn’t so, we wouldn’t care because time always puts things in their right place after all.
Therefore, let’s not ask if this is the best world of possible worlds, but let us move – full of optimism – to firstly plug our own garden, to produce new plays, new spectacles. The theatre is not only an event – it is a way of living. And, as Augusto Boal said in his annual report: we are all actors – the duty of a citizen is not to live in a society, but to change it.
I am grateful to all the artists and workers for an excellent exertion in the last year. We are especially grateful to Slavimir Stojanović for the redesign of the house’s graphic identity, as well as to our long lasting partner, the GRAFIX company.
Happy 61st birthday to all!
31st March 2009
DAY OF THE YUGOSLAV DRAMA THEATRE
On April 3rd 1948 the scene of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre was grandly opened with the play Kralj Betajnove (King of Betajnova) by Ivan Cankar, under directorship of Bojan Stupica. In the next 61 seasons there have been 381 premieres.
At noon on the 3rd April 2009 in the hall of the Main stage „Ljuba Tadić” the friends and colleagues of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre will gather to mark the Day of the Theatre. We will also greet the recipients of the YDT’s Annual Awards, as well as artist and partners who have contributed with their work and marked the passed year.
31st March 2009
NEW PLAY ON THE MAIN STAGE „LJUBA TADIĆ”: U MOČVARI (BY THE BOG OF CATS) BY MARINA CARR, DIRECTED BY EGON SAVIN
Hester Svein (Tamara Vučković) believes in love as the basic value in life and is not willing to compromise between her love and the man she loves Cartidge (Vojin Ćetković) and the environment, who considers her to be an outsider. Is a tragic end of an ultimate love story a necessity today, as it has been in the times when the Greek tragedies were written?
Dramas written by the Irish playwright Marina Carr (1964) often considers family tragedies placed in rural regions of Ireland. Her dramas are coloured with a black humour and physical brutality and are often influenced by Becket. The work of Marina Carr is specific also because a couple of her dramas contain clear allusions on the Greek tragedies or are, loosely, interwoven with various Greek myths. Other dramas by Marina Carr are: Portia Coughlan (staged in the Small Theatre „Duško Radović“), Low in the Dark, Mai, Woman and Scarecrow, On Raftery's Hill, Ariel and others. The very first staging of the play In the Swamp was held on the Dublin Festival in 1998.
The play By the Bog of Cats was translated by Marija Stojanović, while the adaptation and directorship of the drama is signed by Egon Savin. The play is performed by: Tamara Vučković, Vojin Ćetković, Jasmina Avramović, Jelisaveta Sablić, Mihailo Janketić, Dubravka Kovjanić, Vesna Stanković, Miodrag Radovanović, Ljuma Penov, Nikola Jovanović.
The set and costume designs are made by Angelina Atlagić, the artistic associate is Božo Koprivica, while the texts have been done by Marina Milivojević-Mađarev. The premiere is planned for May 2009.
31st March 2009
TOURINGS AND GUEST-PLAYS IN THE YDT
Within the VI Beogradski festival igre (6th Belgrade Festival of Dance) the Conny Janssen Dance Company will perform with the play Rebound on the Main stage „Ljuba Tadić“. The Conny Janssen Dance is one of the most renowned European troops of dancing theatre. With a strong initiative and moving energy, the dancing vocabulary of Conny Jansen implies a skilled choice of music, extraordinar directing and light design, but also virtuous dance and high quality of the dancers.
The play Sho-bo-gen-zo is inspired by the work of the old Zen master Dogen. The dancer and choreographer Jožef Nađ has created one hour long music-and-dancing performance. Beside him, Cecil Loaye from France is also dancing in this play. The play came to being as a coproduction of the Regional Creative Atelier „Jožef Nađ“ from Kanjiža, the Serbian Music Agent Jugokoncert, the town of Pečuj (future cultural capital of Europe in 2010), as well as the Artistic Workshop „Kanjiški krug“ and the French National Choreographic Centre from Orleans. The play is talking of the human’s effort to balance the various times of all earth’s creature into one „True Harmony“.
The play Painkillers is the first play written by Neda Radulović. It speaks ironically and in parodies, but also somehow gloomy about loneliness, frustration and the situation of being lost as the postmodern and seemingly emancipated individual. The story is told through an originally chosen angle of the male–female relations. In a milieu defined by conventions of mediocre marriages and the gossip ethics of women’s news magazines, as well as all fashion and cosmetic brands, the miracles of plastic surgery and so on, the author shows us the untruly emancipated women and the untruly „strong“ men, being in the same time and measure, only tragic and tragicomic individuals. The play is directed by Iva Milošević.
The new drama by Uglješa Šajtinac, Lepet mojih plućnih krila is dealing with the subject of a family that only just lives in the gloom of the Serbian province’s everyday life. The father is a looser without a real job and full of fatherly duty. The mother is a female home-robot with the iron in one hand and the ladle in the other. The son has turned toward Nazi-violence and the more mercantile aspects of the narcotic practice. Under the blow of „transition“ this home stops being a home. The director of this play by the National Theatre of Sombor is Marko Manojlović. This play has been selected for this year’s prestigious festival Sterijino pozorje.
20th. mart 2009.
BY THE BOG OF CATS IN REHEARSAL
Director Egon Savin is preparing a new production at Ljuba Tadic Stage of Yugoslav Drama Theatre – By the Bog Of Cats by Marina Carr, translated by Marija Stojanović. Irish playwright Marina Carr, known to Belgrade theatre goers from her play Portia Coughlan, has reached a worldwide acclaim with her plays such as By the Bog Of Cats. The cast of this poetic tragedy, laced with dark humour and physical brutality, is Tamara Vučković, Vojin Ćetković, Jasmina Avramović, Jelisaveta Sablić, Mihailo Janketić, Dubravka Kovjanić, Vesna Stanković, Miodrag Radovanović, Ljuma Penov and Nikola Jovanović. Premiere is planned to take place in May 2009.
4th March 2009
PREMIERE ON THE STAGE OF BOJAN STUPICA THEATRE ON THE 10th MARCH: ŠVABICA (The Kraut Girl) BY LAZA LAZAREVIĆ, DIRECTED BY ANA ĐORĐEVIĆ
Laza Lazarević (1851-1890), went to Berlin with a stately scholarship to study medicine. After having graduated his studies, he became a doctor specialist in the General Stately Hospital in Belgrade (Opšta državna bolnica u Beogradu). From then on, Lazarević worked a lot with the organization of Serbian sanitary and the medical science in general as a doctor primarius. He was a member of the Serbian Learned Society (Srpsko učeno društvo) and the Academy of Science, and worked as an assisting doctor during the wars of 1876-1878, as well as with the organization of the big, reserve hospital in Niš during the Serbian-Bulgarian war (1885). He also worked as a sanitary major and the king’s personal physician. He published only seven stories, but all of them characterized by a supreme narration: Prvi put s ocem na jutrenje, Školska ikona, U dobri čas hajduci, Na bunaru, Verter, Sve će to narod pozlatiti and Vetar. The novel Švabica (The Kraut Girl) was left unfinished and was published after his death.
4th March 2009
PREMEIERE ON THE LJUBA TADIĆ MAIN STAGE ON THE 2nd MARCH: TRANSLATIONS BY BRIAN FRIEL, DIRECTED BY DEJAN MIJAČ
One resorts to translation in order to reduce the risk of misunderstanding to the smallest possible degree. This is one of the aspects important for our play. Secondly, the word ‘translation’ has another, indirect, meaning in our language, that of ‘taking someone across’, e.g. taking someone across the river without quenching their thirst (as the saying goes). The basis of our word is the notion of ‘across the water’- meaning: crossing from one bank to another, changing the point of view, gaining a different perspective. The ironic connotation comes from the verified belief that every understanding, conversation or discussion does not occur in order for people to understand each other, but rather for everyone to stick to what they were saying, and at the same time convince the others to give up their own ideas, with a profound and onerous conviction that everyone knows and understands what the others think, feel, want and do. Finally, I like plays touching on issues from the sphere of language. Because language, especially this spoken language, is a field for covering and uncovering. Verbalising human potential has many secrets and is a treasury of tragic misunderstanding. Understanding is a different phenomenon for each of the agents involved anyway. Understanding more often than not does not mean comprehending. At any rate, the conflict is impossible to avoid. It’s a paradoxical situation that we are granted along with the gift to communicate with each other through speech.
Dejan Mijač
Brian Friel was born in Omagh, Co. Tyrone in 1929, and in 1939 moved with his family to Derry. He has published two collections of short stories, 'A Saucer of Larks' and 'The Gold in the Sea.' In 1980, Brian Friel co-founded the Field Day Theatre Company in Derry. Brian Friel served in the Senate from 1987 to 1989. He has received honorary doctorates from NUI, TCD, DCU, Magee University and Queen's University. He is an Honorary Fellow of UCD, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Plays: The Enemy Within, Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1964), Translations (1980), Dancing at Lughnasa…
4th March 2009
PISTA ZA ŠEHERZADU (RUNWAY FOR SCHEHEREZADE) IN THE YDT
Snovi o zabranjenom voću (Dreams of the Forbidden Fruits) by Fatima Mernisi, about the hidden world of wishing in a harem – gave the inspiration and motives for the play of Marija Stojanović, the Pista za Šeherezadu (Runway for Scheherazade) directed by Dare de Luca. Through the vision of a girl, this play gives an exiting analysis of the Orient and the Occident, contrasting traditional local life with the contemporary urban life flowing simultaneously, as well as the generational differences and uninterrupted changes of female roles in the present world.
The play was staged for the first time on 11th November 2008 in the Museum of African Art in Belgrade. As a guest-play, it will be performed for the first time on the stage of Studio YDT on 22nd March.
The play is performed by: Katarina Marković (Fatima), Irena Mičijević-Rodić (Dunjazada/Shama), Vladislava Đorđević (Aerodromashica/Majka) and Anđelika Simić (Anabela/Lala Mani). The Stage design is created by Igor Vasiljev, costumes by Dragica Laušević, the music is composed by Goran Orge Nikolić, while the actor Goran Jevtić is the producer of this project.
6th February 2009
REACTIONS OF THE CROATIAN PUBLIC ON THE TOURING OF VOLTAIRE’S PLAY KANDID ILI OPTIMIZAM (CANDID OR OPTIMISM), DIRECTED BY ALEKSANDAR POPOVSKI
Božo Biškupić, the Minister of Culture of the Croatian Government in charge, was also present in the large audience, which warmly received the actors from Belgrade. The Croatian Medias did attentively follow the touring of the YDT in Zagreb. Among many reviews, the first positive critics showed up this morning in Zagreb’s newspaper.
Candide by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre has all that which a serious theatre is supposed to give its audience: it is amusing and intelligent, itchy humorous and emotional, and yet even opens some basic questions of human existence – why do people do only ten percent good of the hundred they could have done? (...) Anyway, despite an extensive humour, sharp language and a rarely clear observance, Voltaire is a hard nut to stage, because the story of Candide’s voyages from never land to nowhere are only the red thread, a rough base on which dazzling caricatures of weirdoes, assassins grow, where everyone has its story and its ’philosophical’ moment. And just there does the play directed by Aleksandar Popovski succeed – act by act, character by character, he carefully lays the mosaic. The art of acting moves in a range of stylisation and caricature, to serene worrying and true emotion. The whole ensemble cooperates faultlessly, led by Nikola Đuričko, who seems so authentically cheerful as if he had just jumped out of Voltaire’s cynical head.
Iva Gruić, Ciničan, istinit i smiješan beogradski Kandid, Jutarnji list
The arrangement of the scenic pictures, with the exact scenic background is carried with fitful dynamics and is most likeable in moments which get overruled by some much layered acting, entwined with humour. It is evident that the director has diligently been working with the actors, deciding precisely every role and fulfilled character. Still, it must be admitted that Popovski has deliberated a vigorous, jolly play, giving it, for the most, an attractive suppleness with plenty of inventive points.
Helena Braut, Duhovito i domišljato, ali predugo
5th February 2009
YUGOSLAV DRAMA THEATRE TOURED ZAGREB
The Zagreb audience rewarded with real ovations the play Kandid ili Optimizam (Candid or Optimism), performed by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre last night, on the 4th February, in Gradsko kazalište „Gavella“ (the City Theatre Gavella). Tickets were sold out two weeks ahead. The director of the play according to Voltaire’s text, Aleksandar Popovski is well known and popular in Zagreb, particularly because of his excellent scene setting of Shakespeare’s Midsummer night Dream, which was also chosen as the best play of the Yugoslav Theatrical Festival in Užice in 2008.
In Kandid ili Optimizam (Candide or Optimism), the main role is played by Nikola Đuričko, while the numerous artistic team consists of: Bogdan Diklić, Nataša Tapušković, Goran Šušljik, Gordana Đurđević, Mihailo Janketić, Milena Vasić-Ražnatović, Srđan Timarov, Dragan Jovanović, Marko Baćović, Vojin Ćetković, Marinko Madžgalj, Dubravko Jovanović, Nikola Simić, Igor Filipović, Tijana Čurović, Vlasta Velisavljević and the opera singer Olivera Krljević.
The Yugoslav Drama Theatre has toured Zagreb with huge success with the plays Šine (Tracks), Hadersfild (Huddersfiled), Skakavci (Locusts) and Tako je moralo biti (So It Had To Be), while the play Le Tartuffe took part on the 2008 festival Dani satire Satiričnog kazališta „Kerempuh“ (Days of Satire by the Satiric Theatre Kerempuh), where the actress Sloboda Mićalović received the award for best acting. The next time the Yugoslav Drama Theatre has planned to tour Croatia will be with Moliere’s Le Tartuffe, under directorship of Egon Savin, on the „XV Festival malih scena u Rijeci“ (15th Chamber Theatre Festival in Rijeka) on the 3rd May.
28th January 2009
PREMIERE OF THE FILM JUGOSLOVENSKO DRAMSKO POZORIŠTE – SAMIM SOBOM (YUGOSLAV DRAMA THEATRE – BY ITSELF)
The film YUGOSLAV DRAMA THEATRE – BY ITSELF 1948-2008, The Passing of Time in Three Acts will be screened on the program 2 of the RTS (Serbian national Broadcasting Service) on Fridays, beginning at 17 h. Through carefully selected archive material, this documentary made by the author and director Dragan Babić and produced for the occasion of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the theatre’s inauguration, through three one hour long episodes, shows evidence made by its creators and cultural mediators, who have participated or followed the work of YDT from its establishment until today.
The first episode „The Beginning of the Past“ was broadcasted on the 23rd January. The second episode named „The Smell of Smoke“ is announced for the 30th January, while the third episode named „We Have Come After the Funeral“ is planned for the 6th February.
The film Jugoslovensko dramsko pozorište – samim sobom equally speaks of the representative theatre as such, as of the interviewed people personally – the makers of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre. Above all, this documentary is a valuable mirror of the society through layers of time, and a particular cultural and artistic comment on the social trembling and changes in Yugoslavia, as well as after its division. This is an exiting story about a state, its art, as of global changes in which our society inevitably participates.
The realization of this film was carried through the means of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic Serbia and the Assembly of the City of Belgrade.
27th January 2009
THE PREMIERE OF THE PLAY PREVODJENJE (TRANSLATIONS) BY BRIAN FRILL UNDER THE DIRECTORSHIP OF DEJAN MIJAČ
Every bringing of novelty, a change, happens through a smaller or larger dose of enforcement. Those who change are often convinced that they bring about an evolutional progress, while those who have to bypass the change, again often, call it enslavement. And, not only one of them is right.
Dejan Mijač
Performing: Goran Šušljik (Manus), Anita Mančić (Sarah), Predrag Ejdus (Jimmy Jack), Milica Mihajlović (Moira), Petar Benčina (Dourly), Hristina Popović (Brigitte), Mihailo Janketić (Hugh), Gordan Kičić (Owen), Dragan Petrović (Captain Lancy), Igor Đorđević (Corneal Yolanda).
The co-operational team are: Juraj Fabri (set designer), Maja Mirković (costume designer), Miloš Krečković and Ivana Dimić (dramaturges), Boris Miljković (video art).
Brian Frill (1929) is one of the most important contemporary Irish writer. He was born in Northern Ireland, but lives in Donegal in the Republic of Ireland. He studied in Derry and Belfast. He worked as a teacher in Derry until 1960, dedicating himself after this completely to writing. The play Translations (1980) is Frill’s most performed and most translated theatrical work, which deals with a real event from 1833, when the map making units of the British Royal Army came to Ireland with the aim to translate the Irish toponimes to English. Among other famous theatre plays by Brian Frill are: Celebration in the Time of Lunas, Internal Enemy, Here I Come, Philadelphia!
The premiere of the play will be held on the 26th February at 20 p.m., on the Main Stage „Ljuba Tadić“. The second run will be on the 28th February 2009.
27th January 2009
THE ŠABAC THEATRE PERFORMS THE PLAY PROTUVE PIJU ČAJ (WRETCHES DRINK TEA) BY DRAGOSLAV MIHAJLOVIĆ, FOR THE FIST TIME ON THE STAGE OF THE „BOJAN STUPICA“THEATRE, UNDER DIRECTORSHIP OF JUG RADIVOJEVIĆ
The building of the Šabac Theatre is under reconstruction since July last year. Therefore, they perform their plays outside of their home stage. The premiere of the play of Dragoslav Mihajlović Protuve piju čaj (Wretches Drink Tea), directed by Jug Radivojević, will find place on the scene of the „Bojan Stupica“ Theatre on the 2nd February 2009. The set designer is Aleksandar Denić, while the costumes have been designed by Jelena Stokuća. The play will be performed by: Zoran Karajić, Ivan Tomašević, Dragoljub Mitić-Đoša, Aneta Tomašević and Vladimir Milojević. After the staging in Belgrade, the play will tour the towns of Leskovac, Kruševac, Niš, Sombor, Zrenjanin and Novi Sad.
27th January 2009
THE SOLO PERFORMANCE BOL (PAIN) BY MARGARET DURAS PERFORMED BY DOMINIQUE BLAN ON THE MAIN STAGE „LJUBA TADIĆ“
Bol (Pain) is an autobiographic work of Margaret Duras. It is a diary of her anticipation of the return of her husband Robert Antelm from captivity in a German concentration camp. In April 1945, while the delight by the end of the war swirls around her, the heroine Margaret Duras walks around the city in the chaos of the last days of war, running from office to office, cursing her telephone, starving, not sleeping. She waits, lurks and despairs for a trace of hope, while her days are filled with threats, fright, desperation and shame. Her friends from the Resistance movement prepare for the arrival of the war returners; and among them is also Robert.
Dominique Blan is a guest of the 37th FEST (Belgrade Film Festival), where her last film The Other Woman (Druga žena) will be screened.The touring of the play Bol (Pain) was organized by the Management of the FEST in cooperation with the French Cultural Centre in Belgrade.
27th January 2009
INTERNATIONAL TOURING OF THE YUGOSLAV DRAMA THEATRE IN ZAGREB AND SARAJEVO
After the large success of the play Tako je moralo biti (So It Had to Be) by Branislav Nušić under directorship of Egon Savin on the Gavelline večeri (Gavella’s Evenings) in Zagreb in October last year, the cooperation of the YDT and the Gradsko kazalište «Gavella» (City Theatre «Gavella») continues. On the 4th February the Zagreb audience will have the occasion to see Voltaire’s play Kandid ili Optimizam (Candid or Optimism) directed by Aleksandar Popovski.
Moliere’s Tartuffe directed by Egon Savin will be touring Sarajevo on the XXV Internacionalni festival Sarajevska zima (25th International Festival “Sarajevo’s Winter”). The Yugoslav Drama Theatre took part in the last year’s festival in Sarajevo too, with the play Barbelo, o psima i deci (Barbelo, On Dogs and Children) byBiljana Srbljanović under directorship of Dejan Mijač.
24th January 2009
39th SEASON OF THE BUBA U UHU (A Flea In Her Ear)
After a long break, the popular play A Flea In Her Ear will be played again on the stage of Teatar “Bojan Stupica” on the 27th January. The play A Flea In Her Ear was originally directed by Ljubiša Ristić, as his final diploma examination. The première was held on the 7th June 1971. With all together 1283 performances in 39 theater seasons, A Flea In Her Ear is a real recorder in the length of its staging. The main hero in this illustrious plot has always been played by Nikola Simić, who will again lead the group of actors: Vlasta Velisavljević, Rada Đuričin, Branka Petrić, Toni Laurenčić, Dubravko Jovanović, Slobodan Tešić, Srđan Ivanović, Petar Ćirica, Srđan Jovanović, Zoran Đorđević, as well as Sonja Kostić and Tinja Došen, who are new actresses on the role list.
This time, A Flea In Her Ear will be played in new dressing, since both the costumes and the set are completely renewed. The set design is adapted according to the original idea of Vladislav Lalicki from 1971, done by the set designer Jasmina Holbus. Her creation is a unique homage to the recently passed set designer Lalicki.
TkH will perform the Last Theoretical Performance – The Outro on the stage Studio YDT on Friday 23rd January at 8:30 p.m. The authors and performers of the play are Marta Popivoda, Ana Vujanović, Bojan Đorđev and Siniša Ilić. The performance will be done only once.
Entrance free!
21st 50January 2009
50TH PLAY PRED PENZIJOM (BEFORE RETIREMENT)
The jubilee of the 50th performance of the play Pred penzijom (Before Retirement) by Thomas Bernhard, directed by Dino Mustafić, will be performed on Saturday, 24th January on the stage of the „Bojan Stupica“ Theatre at 8:30 p.m.
The premiere of this play was held on 7th October 2006. The play Pred penzijom has toured the XV Theatre Marathon in Sombor, the 52nd Sterijino Pozorje, the prestigeous theatre festival in Novi Sad, it has been played during the Theatre Days in Tuzla and the Festival Sarajevska zima (Winter in Sarajevo) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. All the three actors of the play, Mirjana Karanović, Milica Mihajlović and Branislav Lečić, have rewarded by the Annual Award of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre for 2007 for their creations in this play.
30.12.2008.
NEWS FOR JANUARY 2009
THE YEAR 2008
In its jubilar 60th season, Yugoslav Drama Theatre hosted the General Assembly of the Union of European Theatres (UTE). The following productions were also YDP’s guests: Ivanov by A.P. Chekhov, directed by Tamas Aser and produced by Hungary’s Katona Jozef Theatre, The Twelfth Night by Shakespeare, directed by Silviu Purkarete, produced by National Theatre Krayova from Romania and two plays by Pippo Delbono Questo buio feroce and Barboni. Yugoslav Drama Theatre also toured local and international festivals: International Actors’ Festival in Nikšić, XXIV International Festival Sarajevo Winter, Days of Milivoje Živanović and Days of Nušić, V Joakimfest, X Theatre Festival in Doboj, Sterijino pozorje, Theatre Festival Petar Kočić in Banjaluka, Days of Satire in Zagreb, Budva Theatre City Festival, MESS in Sarajevo, and UTE Festival in Romania. Among the many individual and collective awards are the following:
A NEW PRODUCTION IN THE NEW YEAR 2009
Brian Friel Translations
The preparations for the new production at ‘Ljuba Tadić’ Stage have begun: the play in question is Translations by Irish playwright Brian Friel. This play, based on the linguistic misunderstanding and their exciting impact on how we perceive reality, is directed by Dejan Mijac. The cast includes: Goran Šušljik (Manus), Anita Mančić (Sarah), Predrag Ejdus (Jimmy Jack), Milica Mihailović (Maire), Petar Benčina (Doalty), Hristina Popović (Bridget), Mihailo Janketić (Hugh), Gordan Kičić (Owen), Dragan Petrović (Captain Lancey), Igor Djordjević (Lieutenant Holland). The team also includes set designer Juraj Fabri, costume designer Bojana Nikitović and dramaturgs Miloš Krečković and Ivana Dimić, whereas video is done by Boris Miljković.
The Kraut Girl
The Kraut Girl is a love story. For a long time now I have been convinced that love on stage is never what it seems to be. There’s always something else concealed behind love on stage. Love has infinite forms and names. Ana Gutjar is the only woman Misha Maricic has ever loved. Why has he loved her? Why her, of all women? The one we truly love is the one that defines us and that symbolises whatever has defined us as a person. The one we love is the answer to our deepest intimate complexes, views of the world and the most profound bases of our pleading, true selves… Misha’s story is not merely a love story. It is a story about determining one’s own personality. ‘Only scum will yield to the judgement of others. I am no scum’, he keeps repeating… But when he leaves Ana, he not only leaves the only woman he’s ever loved, but also deserts the Misha who would always be able to say ‘I am no scum’. From that moment on, he plays his part consistently, to the very end. And the very end meant covering up for crimes perpetrated by the government, the same government he had sacrificed his old self for, and thus taking part in that crime. Because that’s what scum does. Misha has condemned himself, Misha denied himself the passing grade. And that was the only exam he ever failed. The only, but also the most important one.
Director Ana Djordjević
The story by Laza Lazarevic was dramatised by Milos Lazin and Ana Djordjević. Set designer is Vesna Strbac, costume designer Lana Cvijanovic. Cast: Radovan Vujović (Miša), Marija Vicković (Ana Gutjar), Bojan Lazarević (Nikolaj Ivanov), Nebojša Milovanović (Maks Rihter), Bojana Maljević (Klara Vedel) i Milena Vasić-Ražnatović (Evica).
28th November 2009
OVATIONS FOR THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ON THE 17TH FESTIVAL OF THE UTE – THE UNION OF THEATRES OF EUROPE
The Yugoslav Drama Theatre performed on the 17th Festival of the Union of European Theatres with the play the Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, directed by Egon Savin.
“It’s particularly in times of crisis that the theatre, speaking about the crisis and confronting us face to face with our fears, happiness and joys, as Chekhov put it, and pushing us find the strength to proceed. The theatre has been and always will be the mysterious, secret alphabet of the soul.”
Alexandru Darie, Artistic director of Teatrul Bulandra and President of UTE
During the 54 Festival evenings, played by 600 actors from all over Europe and Israel, 27 plays were played in two cities. In the adjoined program there are exhibitions of scenic artworks, book promotions, tribunes... STUDIO 24 – Compagnie Roger Planchon, Teatro da Rainh, Teatro Garibaldi, Compagnie AZAR, Compagnie Rumpelpumpel, Teatar de La Abadia, Teatrul Bulandra, Habimah National Theatre, Piccolo Teatro di Milano… all take part in the Festival this year. The repertoire is pretty wide, ranging from Sophocles’ Antigona, to various works by Shakespeare, Goldoni, Chekhov and Beckett, Ionesco, Heiner Miler, Peter Weiss and others.
Among the directors, we should certainly point out: Alexandru Darie, Roger Planchon, José Luis Gomez, Pippo Delbono, Lev Dodin, Sliviu Purcarete, Gabor Tompa… The Yugoslav Drama Theatre performed the play Merchant of Venice – four times, two in Bucharest on the stage of Teatrul Bulandra and two in Cluj, on the stage of Teatrul Maghiar de Stat Cluj, followed by long, standing ovations.
The Festival was held from 2nd November to 21st December 2008.
18th November 2008
YUGOSLAV DRAMA THEATRE TOURS ON THE 17TH FESTIVAL OF THE UNION OF EUROPE’S THEATRES
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, under directorship of Egon Savin is touring the 17th Festival of the Union of Europe’s Theatres, which is this year organized by the Teatrul Bulandra (Bucharest, Romania) in cooperation with the Hungarian theatre Cluj (Romania).
The festival was participated by important theatrical troupes and directors from all Europe. The 17th Festival of the UTE calls upon contemplation on the subject of culture’s role in the contemporary world, about theatre as the carrier of the idea of creation and freedom of thoughts, about the meaning of human life within the consumer’s society under the growing pressure of the crisis of the basic values.
The play Merchant of Venice will be played four times on the Festival: 21st and 22nd November in Bucharest, and 25th and 26th November in Cluj. The touring plays in Romania will be performed by: Irfan Mensur, Voja Brajović, Goran Šušljik, Dragan Mićanović, Miodrag Radovanović, Goran Daničić, Anđelika Simić, Tanja Pjevac, Nebojša Milovanović, Srđan Timarov, Pavle Pekić, Nikola Vujović, Goran Jevtić, Slobodan Pavelkić, Isabella Appiah, Ana Simić, Jelena Angelovski, Nemanja Radomirović and Filip Pavlašević.
17th November 2008
JASMINA AVRAMOVIĆ, NIKOLA RAKOČEVIĆ AND ANGELINA ATLAGIĆ RECEIVED THE AWARDS ARDALION ON THE FESTIVAL IN UŽICE
Jasmina Avramović received the award Ardalion On the 13th Yugoslav Theatre Festival, for her episode role of Mila in the play Barbelo, o psima i deci (Barbello, on Dogs and Children) by Biljana Srbljanović, directed by Dejan Mijač. She shares the prize with two other actors – Željko Konigsknecht and Bojan Žirović. The first received his award for the roles of Steva and the Housemaster Dr. Prka in the play Metastaze (Metastasis) by the theatre Kazalište „Kerempuh“ from Zagreb, and the other for his role of the Young Doctor in the play Nevinost (Innocence) produced by the Belgrade theatreAtelje 212.
The award Best Young Actor and the newspaper Politika’s Award „Avdo Mujčinović“ was given to Nikola Rakočević for his role of Zoran (sometimes Marko) in the play Barbelo, o pisma i deci (Barbello, on Dogs and Children).
The Ardalion for the best costumes was given to Angelina Atlagić for her costumes in the play Barbelo, o psima i deci.
The 13th Yugoslav Theatre festival was held from the 10th to 17th November in Užice and the Professional Jury consisted of the actress and director Kaća Dorić, as the president of the Jury, Varja Đukić (actress), Igor Vasiljev (stage design), Lary Zappia (director) and Jelena Marković-Lukić (writer and playwright).
MARIUS VON MAYENBURG THE UGLY ONE - PREMIERE
Lete is an ordinary man. Attracted by fame, he enters the marketing machinery that reshapes him and uses him as it sees fit. When he loses himself, all that remains of Lette is an attractive empty shell that can only serve as a toy.
The play The Ugly One is written in such a way that it can also take place under quite realistic circumstances. Stilisation is a sprout of the magic of theatre that needs to be nurtured with care and carried out with consistency in order for it to be able to develop properly and produce proper meanings.
I want to make shows I would like to see myself. I perceive myself as a director as the first viewer of a future show, someone who needs to be fiercely bothered by something, whose stances should be questioned and whose secure voyer position in the dark of the auditorium needs to be put into jeopardy. In this regard, Mayenburg's plays provide a precious material for creating some truly irritating shows. I hope that our result will be worthy of this extraordinarily potent material.
Marija Krstić, director
Cast: Damjan Kecojević (Lette), Nebojša Djordjević (Karlmann), Jelena Ćuruvija Djurica
(Fanny), Slobodan Tešić (Scheffler).
Premiere on 22 December 2008 on Studio JDP stage at 8.30 PM.
BORIS ISAKOVIĆ RECEIVED THE AWARD “RAŠA PLAOVIĆ” FOR THE ROLE OF ORLON IN TARTIFF
Boris Isaković is the winner of the prestigious award for actors “Raša Plaović” which the National Theatre gives to the best acting achievement on Belgrade’s scenes. Isaković received this significant theatrical prize for the Role of Orgon in the play Tartiff by J. B. P. Molliere, directed by Egon Savin and produced by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre. The ceremonial reception took place on the Day of the National Theatre, on Saturday 22nd November at noon. The prize was passed by the president of the Jury Aleksandra Glovacki.
The elaboration of the Jury: In the role of Orgon in the play Tartiff, Isaković displayed how did the evil of our days came into being – showing extremism which touches the simple minded, naive and yet relatively good-intentional people, who, being incapable of recognizing the evil, fail to struggle against it and fall as victims of its infection. Boris Isaković, an actor in his full artistic strengths and, enthusiastically speaking, an Alexandrite, has provided us with an opportunity to be seduced by musicality, easiness, magnetism and all those merits which Molliere’s theatre in fact should be bestowed with. Through the role of Orgon, Boris Isaković has shown that he reigns over the values of which we remember the acting artistry of Raša Plaović – which means to bring to the light of the scene true drama and yet, in the same time, to express the lines forcefully, trustworthy, musically and articulated.
PREMIERE
Tonight, on 14th of November is the premiere of the play Candide or Optimist (Kandid ili Optimizam) according Voltaire, directed by Aleksandar Popovski at Ljuba Tadić Stage.
Cast: Nikola Đuričko, Bogdan Diklić, Nataša Šolak, Goran Šušljik, Gordana Đurđević, Mihailo Janketić, Milena Vasić-Ražnatović, Srđan Timarov, Dragan Jovanović, Marko Baćović, Vojin Ćetković, Marinko Madžgalj, Dubravko Jovanović
Nikola Simić, Igor Filipović, Tijana Čurović, Vlasta Velisavljević and opera singer Olivera Krljević.
Aleksandar Popovski: Candide attempts to find a bright spot. We can call this quest for a bright spot an illusion... My silent revolution is an attempt to bring people back to the terrain of emotion they will recognise in my show and search for in their own lives.
OVATIONS FOR TAKO JE MORALO BITI (SO IT HAD TO BE) IN ZAGREB
The audience of the festival „Gavelline večeri“ (Gavella’s Evenings) in Zagreb, finished last night, received the Yugoslav Drama Theatre’s play Tako je moralo biti (So It Had To Be) written by Branislav Nušić and directed by Egon Savin, with pure ovations. The hall of the City Theatre (Gradsko kazalište) was simply too small for all those who wanted to see this play. Almost a hundred viewers were standing in the packed audience hall during the entire play. The Zagreb audience was amazed by the acting of the Belgrade actors (Anita Mančić, Nebojša Dugalić, Vojin Ćetković, Predrag Ejdus, Mihailo Janketić...), identifying the exiting and gloomy contemporary drama about the erosion of family values in a society where money has the first and the last word in Nušić’s old masterpiece. The play So It Had to Be was performed on the closure of Gavella’s Evenings, outside of the official concurrence and in honour of the awarded artists.
THE GOLDEN LAUREL WREATH (ZLATNI LOVOROV VIJENAC) GIVEN TO MIRJANA KARANOVIĆ FOR THE BEST ACTING ACHEIVEMENT ON THE 48TH MESS
The Jury of the 48th International Theatre Festival MESS 2008 decided at midnight on the 28th October to share the award The Golden Laurel Wreath (Zlatni lovorov vijenac) for the best acting achievements in equal parts to the actors: Samuel Finsi, for his role in the play Ivanov by the Volksbune am Rosa-Luxemburg-platz (Germany), Julie Dossava for her role in the play P.I. Intimate Presentation (Earth), produced by the company Off/Elsinor and Mirjana Karanović for her role in the play Fedrina ljubav (Phaedra’s Love), produced by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre.
ON INTERNATIONAL FESTIVALS
The Yugoslav Drama Theatre participates on this year’s Festival MESS in Sarajevo with two plays. The play Phaedra’s Love, written by the British playwright Sarah Kane and directed by Iva Milošević, is touring the MESS, first in Zenica (25th October) – with the aim to decentralize the largest theatre festival in Bosnia-Herzegovina – then in Sarajevo on the 27th and 28th October. The main role is performed by Mirjana Karanović, while the other roles are being played by Ermin Bravo, Anđelika Simić, Slobodan Beštić, Goran Jevtić and Ljubomir Bandović.
The other of the YDT’s plays, Janusz Glowacki’s U lovu na bubašvabe (Hunting Cockroaches), directed by Veljko Mićunović, was played on the 26th October. Nataša Ninković and Dragan Petrović-Pele were playing the main roles of the emigrant married couple settled in New York.
After a series of successful touring across the county during the last season, the play Tako je moralo biti (So It Had To Be) by Branislav Nušić and directed by Egon Savin, has been invited to the 23rd Gavella’s Evenings (Gavelline večeri), an international festival organized by the Gradsko dramsko kazalište „Gavella“ (City Drama Theatre Gavella) in Zagreb, Croatia.
THE REHEARSALS FOR VOLTAIRE’S CANDIDE HAS STARTED UNDER THE DIRECTORISHIP OF ALEKSANDAR POPOVSKI
Voltaire’s Candide speaks about optimism as a philosophical idea and a point of view in life. Today, optimism is heavily problematical. It is even popular to say that an optimist is in deed only a poorly informed pessimist. Is it really so? Has the time come to turn this aphorism upside down and say that a Pessimist is, in fact, an Optimist without the courage to persist? In a stereotypical way of looking Candid is a good fool who gets fooled, offended and insulted by the mean and manipulative, say those who „know how life is“... But, is that really truth? Is it only Candide that is naive or are all those who think that they recognise and understand the construction of world? In our play all the roles stay in their own time, only Candide gets old. That’s why Candide is a tale of growing up and the termination from Heaven, which are subjects that, again, necessarily are connected to optimism as a philosophical idea and a way of seeing life.
Aleksandar Popovski
The main roles in the play Candide will be played by Nikola Đuričko, while the other roles are given to: Branko Cvejić, Bogdan Diklić, Mihailo Janketić, Nataša Tapušković, Gordana Đurđević, Nikola Simić, Vojin Ćetković, Goran Šušljik, Srđan Timarov, Milena Ražnatović, Vuk Kostić, Dragan Jovanović, Tijana Mladenović, Marinko Madžgalj, Dubravko Jovanović, Ljubomir Bandović, Marko Baćović... The set designer is Sven Jonke, the costumes are by Lana Cvijanović, the composer is Kiril Džajkovski and the dramatist is Miloš Krečković.
This is the first time that Aleksandrar Popovski directs a play in the YDT. The premiere is expected in November.
THE REHEARSALS FOR THE ENTHUSIASTS BY ROBERT MUSIL, DIRECTED BY MILOŠ LOLIĆ HAS STARTED!
The first premiere on the stage of the Bojan Stupica Theatre is the play Dreamers by Robert Musil under directorship of Miloš Lolić. We find Nikola Vujović (Tomas), Dubravka Kovjanić (Maria),Vanja Ejdus (Regina), Goran Jevtić (Anselm), Feđa Stojanović (Joseph),Cvijeta Mesić (Miss Mertens),Radovan Vujović (Schtader) on the role-list. The team of production associates are: Periša Perišić (dramaturge), Jasmina Holbus (set designer), Maria Jelesijević (costumes), Luka Ivanović (musical associate), Bojana Denić (stage movement) and Vladimir Perišić (organiser).
Robert Musil (1880-1942) is an Austrian writer who is being renown to the broader literature audience particularly by the big and unfinished novel The Man without Qualities. This novel is one of the most significant works of modern literature.
It is less known that Musil also authored two dramas – Dreamers (1921)and Vincent and the Girlfriend of Respectable Men (1924).
In the form of the Dreamers there are none of those formal experimentalism of that age (1908, when it was written, or the 20-ies when it was published), or any of the early Brecht, the German expressionism or the Scandinavian modern drama of the earlier decades, not even any of the secessionist, symbolic drama on the turn of the centuries. On the first glance, the Dreamers seem like a middle-class drama of the salon type, with problems of a typical triangle, marital discord and wrong doing: Regina left her husband Joseph, leaving with her lover Anselm to her sister Maria, who is married to Thomas. Of course, what could happen in a middle-class drama that also Maria falls for the lover and becomes a concurrent to her sister. But, the way in which the characters are portrayed in this drama, tells us that the Dreamers are made by the same hand that developed the novel The Man without Characteristics. (…)
However, Esslin indicates that Musil is in fact closer to the post neo-romanticism of the contemporary secessionist Hugo von Hoffmanstall. For us, in our postmodern time, this can make us think that our decade especially is the right time for Musil’s drama. It is not a surprise that it exist in Serbian translation since the end of the 80-ies(…) The delay has probably made the right time for this surprising and thrilling encounter.
Jovan Ćirilov: „Drama sa naknadnim paljenjem“
(The drama with a delayed turn-on)
THE SCENE OF THE STUDIO YDT: THE DREADFUL BY MARIUS VON MAYENBURG, DIRECTED BY MARIJA KRSTIĆ
Marius von Mayenburg (1972) is a German writer. In the year of 1977 he received the Grant for Young Dramatsts from the Fond of Heinrich Klaist. During 1998 and 1999 he works as a dramatist in the renown Berlin theatre Baracke (by the Deutches Theater), where his dramas get directed by Thomas Ostermeier. From 1999, Mayenburg is a dramatist and writer in the Berliner Schaubühne am Leninplatz. He has received the Cleis’ Award for his drama the Fiery Face in 1998. He lives in Berlin. Dramas: Haarmann 1996, Fräulein Danzer 1996, Monsterdämmerung 1997, Feuergesicht 1997, Parasiten 1999, Das kalte Kind 2002, Eldorado 2004, Turista 2005, Augenlicht 2006, Der Häßliche 2007.
The play Dreadfulis the final diploma-work for Marija Krstić.
INTERNATIONAL TOURING
The YDT is guest-playing on the 48th MESS Festival in Sarajevo (19-28th October) with the plays: Phaedra’s Love by Sarah Kane, directed by Iva Milošević and the play Hunting Cockroaches (U lovu na bubašvabe) by Januš Glovacki, directed by Veljko Mićunović.
During October, plays by the YDT travels to two more international festivals. Hunting Cockroaches guest-plays on the Montenegrin Theatre Festival CNP (Podgorica), while It Had To Be So (Tako je moralo biti) by Branislav Nušić, directed by Egon Savin goes to the 23rd Gavelline večeri which are organised in Gradsko dramsko kazalište “Gavella” in Zagreb.
The opera of Isidora Žebeljan Maratonci will have its Serbian premiere on the 14th October on the BEMUS (Belgrade Music Festival) on the Ljuba Tadić Main Stage (second run on 16th October). This opera has come into being according to the motives of the drama Maratonci trče počasni krug by Dušan Kovačević. The libretto is composed by Borislav Čičovački, Milica Žebeljan and Isidora Žebeljan, and is a coproduction of the Festival in Bregence and the New Opera in Vienna (Austria).
On the Ljuba Tadić Main Stage there is a guest playing of HNK Ivana pl. Zajca, a theatre from Rijeka, Croatia. They play the Tamed Shrew by William Shakespeare, under the directorship of Vito Taufer.
In Taufer’s play, there is no need to seek some deeper – ideological, political or gender-related meaning. It is more rewarding to see his Tamed Screw as an interesting and humorously told tale, but firstly as a play of great actor artistry, with an intentionally stressed theatricality.
Kim Cuculić, Novi list
NEWS ARCHIVE FOR 2007/2008. SEASON
THE ACTRESS MIRJANA KARANOVIĆ RECEIVED AWARD “OSVAJANJE SLOBODE” (WINNING FREEDOM)
Mirjana Karanović received the Award “Winning of Freedom” for her affirmation of Human rights, the Legal state, democracy and tolerance in political communication, given by the Fond „Maja Maršićević-Tasić“. The Award, consisting of a sculpture by the sculptor Mrđan Bajić and a plaque, was this year given by the president of the jury and the last-year winner Lila Radonjić. The celebration was attended also by all the other recipients of this prize: Olja Bećković, Goranka Matić, Biljana Srbljanović, Ružica Đinđić, Borka Pavićević i Hedvig Morvai-Horvath, as well as the Mayor of Belgrade Dragan Đilas. The Award is every year given on the 24th September, on the day of the historic election in 2000, when Slobodan Milošević was defeated.
AWARD FOR SLOBODA MIĆALOVIĆ ON THE FESTIVAL IN ZAGREB
Sloboda Mićalović received the award „Zlatni smijeh“ (Golden smile) on the 32nd Days of Satire by the Satiric Theatre Kerempuh for her role of Elmira in Moliere’s Tartuffe
Days of Satire by the Satiric Theatre Kerempuh is a traditional festival of satiric plays and comedies, and this year was held from the 4th to 23rd June. The festival is of a competitive art. There were plays from Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Rijeka, Sarajevo and others. The Tartuffe by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre was the only play from Belgrade.
This year’s festival was dedicated to the 500th anniversary of birth of the famous Dubrovnik’s playwright Marin Držić. The Festival’s selector was Hrvoje Ivanković, theatre critic from Zagreb.
(23rd June 2008)
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PRESENTATION OF THE AWARD OF THE OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NOVI SAD TO ANITA MANČIĆ
For 50 years, the Open University of Novi Sad grants the Award of the Audience that the audience voted for themselves on the traditional Theatre Festival Sterijno pozorje. Traditionally, the Award-reception is also held on the Open University of Novi Sad. This year’s jubilee 50th Audience Award went to Anita Mančić for her role of Jela in the play Tako je moralo biti (So It Had to Be) by Yugoslav Drama Theatre.
The price itself is an artistic painting and this year’s award is an oil-painting by Kolja Obrovski, an academic painter from Novi Sad. The award will be presented by Olivera Dadić, PR of the Open University of Novi Sad.
The presentation will be held on after the performance of the Tako je moralo biti on the Main Stage Ljuba Tadić on the 25th June, at 8 p.m.
AWARDS ON THE FESTIVAL TEATAR FEST „PETAR KOČIĆ“ IN BANJA LUKA
The performance by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre Huddersfield,written by Uglješa Šajtinac and directed by Alex Chisholm, is proclaimed as the very best performance of the Teatar Fest „Petar Kočić 2008“ in Banja Luka. Uglješa Šajtinac received the award „Kočićeva knjiga“ for the best play. The statuette „David Štrbac“ for the best actor was given to Nebojša Glogovac for his role of Ivan in the play Huddersfield.
This year’s Teatar Fest „Petar Kočić“ was for the first time of a competitive nature. There were eight plays on the festival, coming from Banja Luka, Split, Podgorica, Kragujevac, Belgrade and Maribor.
AWARDS FOR THE YUGOSLAV DRAMA THEATER ON THE 53RD FESTIVAL OF STERIJINO POZORJE
BILJANA SRBLJANOVIĆ – Sterija’s Award for Best Contemporary Play – BARBELO, ON DOGS AND CHILDREN, directed by Dejan Mijač, Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Belgrade.
EGON SAVIN – Sterija’s Award for Best Director – for the plays ĆEIF by Mirza Fehimović, adaptation by Egon Savin, Belgrade Drama Theatre and the play TAKO JE MORALO BITI (IT HAS TO BE SO) by Branislav Nušić, adaptation by Egon Savin, Yugoslav Drama Theatre.
ANITA MANČIĆ - Sterija’s Award for Best Actor/Actress for the role of Jela in the play IT HAS TO BE SO by Branislav Nušić, adapted and directored by Egon Savin.
ANGELINA ATLAGIĆ – Sterija’s Award for Best Set design – for the plays IT HAS TO BE SO by Branislav Nušić, adapted and directed by Egon Savin and BARBELO, ON DOGS AND CHILDREN directed by Dejan Mijač.
NIKOLA RAKOČEVIĆ received the Award from the Fond „Dara-Darinka Čalenić“ for the Best Young Actor in the Selection of national drama and theatres, for the role of Zoran/Marko in the play BARBELO, ON DOGS AND CHILDREN by Biljana Srbljanović, directed by Dejan Mijač.
The Open University of Novi Sad, awarded for best acting by the votes of the audience – ANITA MANČIĆ for the role of Jela in the play IT HAS TO BE SO by Branislav Nušić, adapted and directed by Egon Savin, Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Belgrade.
The jury of the 53rd Sterijino pozorje were: Branka PETRIĆ, actress, Belgrade (president), Novica ANTIĆ, translator, Belgrade, Primož BEBLER, director, Nova Gorica (Slovenia), Boško MILIN, theatre expert, Belgrade and Goran PETROVIĆ, writer, Kraljevo.
The 53rd Sterijino pozorje was this year held from the 26th May to 5th June in Novi Sad. In the selection of national drama and theatre, there were nine plays, of which five were in the program named Circles.
THREE FESTIVALS AND ...
In the month of June, plays of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre will be perfomed on three festivals.
The play Huddersfieldby Uglješa Šajtinac, directed by Alex Chisholm, will be peformed on the festival Teatar fest “Petar Kočić 2008" in Banja Luka. It is the 11th time this festival will be held and it is the first time that it has the character of a contest. Plays from Belgrade, Sarajevo, Split, Podgorica, Maribor and Kragujevac will be guest-starring on the festival, as well as two new awards: an Award for the Best play and an Award for the festival’s best performance. The festival will be held from the 2nd to 10th June 2008.
Moliere’s play Tartiffe, directed by Egon Savin, will be played on the 32nd Dani Satire (The Days of Satire) organised by Satirično kazalište “Kerempuh”, the traditional festival of satire and comedy, which will be held in Zagreb between the 4th and 23rd June. The Festival keeps a contest character and will receive plays form Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Rijeka, Sarajevo and Belgrade. The Tartiffe is the only representative from Belgrade. This year’s Festival is held to honor the 500th anniversary of birth of (the famous playwright from Dubrovnik) Marin Držić. Hrvoje Ivanković is the selector this year.
The play Circus History by Sonja Vukićević, will open this year’s festival the City Theatre Budva. The festival’s organizers plan even four co-productions – the Kaligula, Kadmopolis, Kjara Zorza and Budvanske priče. Some plays that had their premiere on previous festivals will also be played this year. Beside these four co-productions, there is also a plan to incorporate two program entities of which a resemblance of the Renaissance is one. This year’s guest-troupes come from Spain, France, Russia, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Israel, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro. There is a suggestion to form a new program unit which will be a program for children and which will consist of plays from the territories of the ex-Yu countries.
Beside the mentioned festival touring, two more are planned – the play Huddersfieldwill tour in Mrkonjić Grad, while Tako je moralo biti (So It Has to Be by Branislav Nušić) will play in Valjevo.
…A PRIZE
The play Huddersfield by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre has received a price for the Best play on the 10th Teatar-fest in Doboj, while the price for the Best male role was given to the actor Nebojša Glogovac for the interpretation of the role of Ivan in this play. The Festival in Doboj was held from 17th to 23rd May. In the decision made by a three-member jury (Ranko Pavlović, writer, Zoran Karajić and Ljubo Božović, dramatic artist) the following is said:
This play, in an extraordinary performance of a superb ensemble, cuts deeply into the malign meet-layers of the contemporary society with its messages and discreetly points out the need for change in social relations which will be turned more towards humanity, his needs and soul. On the basis of an inspired text, with an undoubted and obvious contribution of the director, in a very functional and low-toned stage setting and through all possible dramatic means, the performers tell with a catching directness, an appealing story whose echoes yield and continues in the audience even after the lights have been turned off. Through the first glance, small dealing and intimate details from the lives of young people from these regions of ours, on the turning point of the second and the third millennium, a universal story is told which, in the sight of the spectators and maybe even collaborators, the trivial and farcical get epic dimensions of an all-time dimension.
KAFKA FIRST TIME ON THE STAGE OF YDT – THE CASTLE
The Castle by Franz Kafka (1883-1924), dramatized by Dušan Bogović and directed by Nikola Zavišić, will have its premiere on the 9th May on the stage of the “Bojan Stupica” Theatre. Nebojša Glogovac plays the role of K., while Milena Vasić-Ražnatović, Jelena Ćuruvija-Đurica, Sena Đorović, Nebojša Milovanović, Nikola Vujović, Bojan Dimitrijević and Bojan Lazarov perform as well in this play. Set Designer is Siniša Ilić, Costim Designer is Maja Mirković, Sonja Lončar is the composer and the musician on stage and the choreographer is Dunja Jocić.
A Castle carries a strong symbolism just by itself. It is not easy to seize any castle, neither physically nor mentally. I believe that everybody within oneself carries a Castle which we try to seize, try to get close to it in any possible way, to scratch a bit of its walls, to seduce it, even beyond our own principles, to seize it – and leave with “God’s flower in our hand” – or simply – try to crush it, burn it down, even it out with the ground – and then leave as “God’s opponent”! And there, for certain, comes the dilemma – Crush it or seize it? Kafka’s dilemma is our dilemma. In the novel, both options moves alongside on the central axe of the affairs so that the reader can get enough space to find peace somewhere in a corner, to make a decision and to finally be called upon action! Because, we are all called upon, without exceptions! That is the soul of this artwork.
Dušan Bogović
Franz Kafka wrote his novel Castle in 1922, but it was published first in 1926. This is the very first performing of one of Kafka’s works on a stage of the YDT, as well as the first directorship of Nikola Zavišić in this theatre.
BARBELO, OF DOGS AND CHILDREN AND SO IT HAD TO BE ON THE 53rd FESTIVAL “STERIJINO POZORJE”, WHILE TRACKS – WILL BE PLAYED RIGHT BEFORE THE “STERIJINO POZORJE”
On this year’s 53rd Sterijino Pozorje (Novi Sad, 26th May – 5th June), the Yugoslav Drama Theatre participates with two plays. Barbelo, On Dogs And Children by Biljana Srbljanović, directed by Dejan Mijač, will open the festival “Sterijno pozorje” on the 26th May. The play by Branislav Nušić, Tako je moralo biti (So It Had to Be), directed by Egon Savin, will be performed on the 30th May. The selector in the field of National drama and theatre this year is Tanja Mandić-Rigonat.
Biljana Srbljanović moves in her fixed thematic circle and, actually, talks about family relations. With this drama also, she reveals the truth that the new, contemporary Holly Family is made by those who recognize their own loneliness and make a wish to share it. A family is not made by blood, but recognition, in the desire to share. What? Love. The elementary particle. The directorship of Dejan Mijač is smooth, subtle, honorable, it connects diverse parts of the drama in a unique, emotional and metaphoric confession.
Tanja Mandić-Rigonat (Barbelo or God, the First Thought, the Uterus of the World or – Love)
The play Tako je moralo biti (So It Had to Be), directed by Egon Savin is not just an old embroidery, embroidered by some hundred years old theatrical threads, found in an old, dusty corner of a antiquary, but a contemporary drama, directed with a feeling for real melodramatic stylization. In this present day value-system, of vulgar and wild capitalism, entirely dominated by money, in which inter human relations often are confined to a buy and sell logics and dynamics, the director finds a natural “scenery” for the awakening of this drama by Nušićev, in its deepest layers…
Tanja Mandić-Rigonat (So It Had to Be or How Much Does Love Cost)
The play Tracks by Milena Marković, directed by Slobodan Unkovski, which premiere was in 2002, will be played right before the opening of the 53rd Sterijino pozorje. This is also the very first touring of the YDT’s play Tracks in Novi Sad.
MORE ABOUT TOURINGS IN MAY …
During May, the Yugoslav Drama Theatre will perform even six touring in Serbia and one in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The play It Had to Be So by Branislav Nušić, directed by Egon Savin will take part on the 5th Joakimfest, Kragujevac, which is the festival of the best Serbian theater plays and plays from abroad performed on the Serbian language. There are seven plays in the selection, and the selector is Dragana Bošković.
Hadersfiled will tour Doboj (BiH), while Kokoška will be shown in Zrenjanin.
RULES FOR GOOD MANNERS IN THE MODERN WORLD
Jean-Luc Lagarce(1957-1995) is the most performed contemporary playwright in France. Legarce’s theatre is focused on speech, while the plots in his dramas are relatively toned down. His characters constantly tent to clarify and explain what they just said. Even if he insists on a maximum of precision, the text, as a paradox, becomes more undefined (with the progress of the play). An important theme of his dramas is a research (into the field of communication) and the possibilities to communicate something through language. He died in an age of 38 of the consequences of AIDS, just as another huge writer of his generation Bernard-Marie Coltes.
The director Anđelka Nikolić was born in 1977. She graduated drama and radio directorship from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (in Belgrade), in the class of professors Slavenko Saletović and Ljubomir Draškić, as well as French language and literature from the Philological Faculty in Belgrade. She has directed the plays: Sam sebi žena (Galerija Progres, Beograd), Prevareni (National Theatre in Vršac, the stage of Romanian language), Vučjak i Ženidba (National Theatre in Kikinda) and Suton (Bitef teatar, Belgrade). She translates from French and English and is a member of the artistic group Hop.la!
The play is performed by: Djurdjija Cvetić, Jelena Ilić, Djordje Branković, Teodora Živanović, Rade Ćosić. The production team of the project is: set designer Vesna Štrbac, Djordje Branković (music), Dejan Došljak (costume), Ljiljana Tasić (movement) and Ljiljana Mrkić-Popović is a proof reader.
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
The premiere of the play The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, under the directorship of Egon Savin took place on the 3rd February 2004. During this four years it has been staged on the Main Stage Ljuba Tadić, the play has received numerous awards and has been performed on a couple of domestic and international festivals.
In 2004 it received the «Ardalion» prize for the best play on the Yugoslav Theatre Festival in Užice. On this festival, Egon Savin received the «Ardalion» award for the best directorship, while the actor Miodrag Radovanović Mrgud got the «Ardalion» for his three episode roles of Gobo, Tubal and the Dodge of Venice. Dragan Mićanović was awarded with two prizes for his role of Portia: the «Miloš Žutić» award given by the Serbian Union of Drama Artist, as well as the «Raša Plaović» prize, which affirms the highest values of theatrical acting in the region of Belgrade. The play participated on the «Teatarski most» Festival in Sarajevo in 2004, on the MOT Festival in Skopje, Macedonia and on the closing of the Sterijino pozorje Festival in 2004, when the play was performed for honor of the awarded artist. It has also been staged on the Festival Budva City Theatre and on XXXVIII BITEF in Belgrade.
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ANNOUNCEMENT OF EVENTS IN APRIL
Yugoslav Drama Theatre will celebrate its 60th birthday on the 3rd April 2008. In the context of its jubilee, the YDT prepares the monograph 60 Years of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre and a documentary film by Dragan Babić consisting of three parts. The exhibition Vizuelni identitet JDP 1948-2008 (Visual Identity YDT 1948-2008), made in a collaboration with the Serbian Museum of Theatrical Art, will also be opened this time.
During April, in the context of the celebration of the Day of YDT, the premiere of Moliere's Tartuffe, directed by Egon Savin, will be performed. The role of Tartuffe is played by Dragan Mićanović, while Boris Isaković plays Orgon, Svetlana Bojković plays Mrs. Pernelle, Anita Mančićplays Dorine, Sloboda Mićalović plays Elmire, Radovan Vujović plays the role of Damis, Valere is played by Nikola Vujović, Cléante is played by Marko Baćović, Danijela Štajnfeldplays Mariane and Slobodan Tešić plays Mr. Loyal, the Executor.
Yugoslav Drama Theatre is a member of European Theaters Union and, in the context of the jubilee, a number of respected European theatres will perform on our stages.
The Theatre of Katona József Szinhaz from Budapest will perform the play Ivanov by A.P. Chekhov, under the directorship of Tamas Ascher.
The Compagnia Pippo Delbono will perform the play Guerra and Barboni.
The National Theatre from Krajova will perform Shakespeare’s play The Twelfth Night under the directorship of Silviu Purkarete.
And, the Bulandra Teatrul from Bucharest will stage the play Triumph of Love byMarivaux, directed by Alexandre Dariu.
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Assembly of the L'Union des Théâtres de l'Europe in YDT
For the first time the Yugoslav Drama theatre will be the host of the general assembly of the L'Union des Théâtres de l'Europe. The YDT is a member of this respected organisation since 2006 and has got the honourable role of a host because the Yugoslav Drama Theatre celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. Directors of the largest European theatres – members of the Union and directors of a couple of theatre festivals will participate on this one-day council on the 17th February 2008 to agree upon strategies for development of the network of European theatres. During their stay, they will also see some plays from the repertoire of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre.
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Fedra’s Love by Sarah Kane, directed by Iva Milošević – on the stage of the Bojan Stupica Teatre
Iva Milošević: Fedra’s Love represents a brave new reading [or authorship] of the well known antique myth about the forbidden love of a stepmother towards a stepson. It is interwoven with the author’s intimate experience of the contemporary world, brutally bitter and drowning in desperation, told through an unusual aesthetic of cruelty, extremes and an unexpected poetics. With a telegraphically peeled, minimalistic lingual factuality, in a contra to an intense emotional layer of this piece and, by twisting pictures of extreme brutality with moments of pure tenderness and truthfulness in the human being, Sarah Kane creates an unusual theatre of „impressions“ that doesn’t leave anyone indifferent. The play will attempt to courageously reply to this huge theatrical challenge and to reveal to the audience the beauty and glory of one of the oddest playwrights of the 90’s.
The play Fedra’s Love is performed by: Mirjana Karanović (Fedra), Ermin Bravo (Hipolith), Anđelika Simić (Strophe), Slobodan Beštić (Tessey), Goran Jevtić (Doctor), and Ljubomir Bandović (Priest).
In the production team of Fedra’s Love are: Gorčin Stojanović (Set Designer), Maja Mirković (Costume Designer), Vladimir Pejković (Composer) and Ljiljana Mrkić-Popović (Proof-reader).
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Rules for Good Manners in the Modern World
About death and funerals
DAME: When death is stated and recognized, an arrangement is made with the church and the funeral service about the sermon, the funeral and the burial. The room transforms to a kind of a chapel. That is very pretty. In rare occasions the open coffin is laid down in the living room. Death is treated as the hero of the day, because it is.
From Jean Luc Lagarce Rules for Good Manners in the Modern World
The play Rules for Good Manners in the Modern Society was written in 1994. In this play Lagarce elaborates social conventions related to key events of a citizen’s life: birth, baptism, engagement, wedding and death. In the Belgrade set of this piece of Lagarce, the Dame will be played by Đurđija Cvetić, while the director is Anđelka Nikolić, who also translated this Lagarce’s play. The play will also be performed by Jelena Ilić, Đorđe Branković, Teodora Živanovićand Rade Ćosić. In the production team of the Rules for Good Manners in the Modern Society are:the Stage DesignerVesna Štrbac, Costume Designer Dejan Došljak, music is made by Đorđe Branković, Ljiljana Tasić does the scenic movement and Ljiljana Mrkić-Popović is a proof-reader.
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Barbelo in Sarajevo, Kokoška (The Hen) in Canada
Yugoslav Drama Theatre is touring the XXIV International Festival Sarajevo’s Winter 2008 from 7 February – 21 March with the play Barbelo, on Dogs and Children by Biljana Srbljanović, directed by Dejan Mijač. This international festival is a traditional manifestation of culture and art in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina and this year is held under the title Barricades without Borders – ’68 the New (moral) World organized by the International Peace Centre (IPC).
The play Kokoška (The Hen) by Nicolay Koliada and directed by Jagoš Marković will visit Toronto (Canada) and the Isabel Bader Theatre on the 1-2 March in theSystem Entertainment’s arrangement. System Entertainment is working with the organization of touring for Serbian artist and, until now, also the Zvezdara Teatar and Pozorištance Puž, besides YDT, have been casted abroad in their arrangement. Also the theatres Atelje 212, Beogradsko dramsko and Malo pozorište „Duško Radović” have announced their touring abroad. Yugoslav Drama Theatre has, by now, toured with three plays: Bliže (Closer), Hadersfild (Huddersfield) and Šine (Tracks).
The National Theatre of Užice tours the YDT
The collaboration of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre and the National Theatre of Užice continues in 2008. The theatre from Užice will perform the play by Steve Tešić Umetnost i dokolica (Art and Leasure), directed by Nemanja Ranković, for the Belgrade audience. The National Theatre of Užice has won numerous awards on the 43rd Festival of Proffessional Theatres of Serbia. The play Art and Leasure has been procalimed the best play in completenss, Nemanja Ranković received the award for directorship, Miroljub Aranđelović-Rasinski for music, Snežana Kovačević for the costumes and David Zarić for the stage design. Two (of four) prizes for acting were given to Slobodan Ljubišić for the role of Aleksa Čejnij and Ivana Pavićević for the role of his daughter.
NEW PREMIERE – BARBELO, OF DOGS AND CHILDREN BY BILJANA SRBLJANOVIĆ
Biljana Srbljanović: It seems to me that I have been writing one drama all my life and that I have been talking about one and the same subject all the time; about family relations and the fact that nobody can harm one as one’s own kinship, even when this is deliberately unwanted and the only sin done is the simple fact that one is born within a particular family.
I feel almost obsessed by „house”-themes, generational relations, parents and children, children who grow old but don’t grow up, children who symbolically kill their parents, parents who never give up and spastically hold on to their lives, without leaving anything over to those children. I think that the picture of a Serbian family is a good picture of the society as a whole. I am interested in the condition of the society because it reflects itself on the most intimate and most private spheres of life. The collapse of the family comes when the society collapses. The fact that parents victimize their children or refuse to get them at all, or refuse to let them grow up and then in return children repay their parents brutally, all those conditions are consequences of general social conditions. Political and social dimensions interest me just that much as they strike me for their direct consequences on to the personal life.
(Taken from the program of the play Barbelo, of Dogs And Children)
The premiere of Biljana Srbljanović’s play Barbelo, of Dogs And Children, directed by Dejan Mijač, is on the 4th December on the Main stage «Ljuba Tadić» of Yugoslav Drama Theatre.
The play is performed by: Jelena Đokić, Nebojša Glogovac, Mirjana Karanović, Goran Šušljik, Nikola Đuričko, Nikola Rakočević, Ana Sofrenović, Jasmina Avramović, Toni Laurenčić and Marko Baćović.
AWARDS
In the first part of the jubilar 60th season Yugoslav Drama Theatre and related individual artists have received a series of theatre-prizes.
Our production Circus History by Sonja Vukićević received the Critics Award „Avazov zmaj“ of the papers Dnevni avaz for the best play on the Festivalin Sarajevo.The prize was given by the jury consisting of David Adams, Asmir Kujović and Anila Gajević.
Vida Ognjenović received the prize „Grad teatar“ (Theatre City Budva) for her work as a playwright on the XXI Festival Theatre City Budva.
Igor Đorđević received the Award for the best actor for his interpreting of Bruno in the play Don Krsto, while Đurđija Cvetić received the Award for the best actress in supporting role for her parts of Aunt Lucia and Olympia in the same play on the First Montenegrin Theatre Festival in Podgorica in October 2007.
In November, Egon Savin received the Director’s Award for directing of the play Tako je moralo biti (So It Had to Be) on the Theatrical Autumn in Vršac. During the same month, the actress Anita Mančić received the Prize „Ardalion“ as the best actress on the Yugoslav Theatre Festival in Užice.
AWARDS FOR HUDDERSFIELD AND NEBOJSA GLOGOVAC
Yugoslav Drama Theatre production of Huddersfield by Ugljesa Sajtinac, directed by Alex Chisholm, was awarded the Festival Grand Prix by the Jury of 24th Bosnia and Herzegovina Theatre Gathering in Brcko. Nebojsa Glogovac was awarded the Best Actor Grand Prix for the part of Ivan in the same play.
This year, the Theatre Gathering festival grew into a regional manifestation, with productions and artists based out of Bosnia and Herzegovina competing in three categories (Best Production, Best Actor and Best Actress). In general opinion, the regionalisation of the festival has raised the aesthetic-artistic criteria, so that the Best Production and Best Direction prizes for productions realised in Bosnia and Herzegovina were not awarded this year. Ten productions from Zagreb, Niksic, Vinkovci, Tuzla, Mostar, Sarajevo and Banjaluka took part in this year’s programme, from November 15 through 23.
ANITA MANCIC PROCLAIMED THE BEST ACTRESS OF XII YUGOSLAV THEATRE FESTIVAL IN UZICE
At the recently completed XII Yugoslav Theatre Festival – The Festival With No Translation in Uzice, Anita Mancic was awarded the ‘Ardalion’ Best Actress Prize for the part of Jela in the Yugoslav Drama Theatre production of It Had To Be So by Branislav Nusic, directed by Egon Savin.
Members of expert Jury were Boro Draskovic, director, Danica Dedijer, costume designer, Nenad Segvic, actor and Ruzica Marjanovic, literature professor.
Yugoslav Drama Theatre has so far taken part at the festival seven times. The productions of Powder Keg, Misanthropist, Skup, Merchant Of Venice, Huddersfieldand Boat For Dolls received Ardalion prizes for best productions of the festival, whereas the production of Tracks was awarded special prize.
PRIZE TO THE DIRECTOR EGON SAVIN
On the recently ended 15th International Festival “Klasika mera vrednosti” (Classics as a Measure of Value) in Vršac, Serbia the director Egon Savin received an award for his staging of the play Tako je moralo biti (It Had to Be So) written by the renown Serbian playwright Branislav Nušić and performed by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre.
The jury, consisting of the director Boro Drašković, Gordana Lazić-Velovan, professor of litterature and Professor Dr. Raško Jovanović, elaborated the awarding of Egon Savin with his easily understandable researching within the Classics.
There were ten plays participating in the 15th International Festival “Klasika mera vrednosti“.
PRIZE ON THE MESS FESTIVAL
On the 47th MESS in Sarajevo the performance Circus History directed by Sonja Vukićević and performed by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre received the prize "Avazov zmaj". The prize was given by the critics of the newspaper Dnevni avaz, with a jury consisting of: David Adams, theatre critic from the UK, Asmir Kujović, writer and publicist and Anila Gajević, editor of the cultural department of the newspaper Dnevni avaz.
The explanation for the choise of the prize giving says that: "In a broken mirror of detached quotes of superb poetry from Shakespeare's dramas, the play Circus History keeps the game of summoning a timeless Last Judgement. In scenes of extraordinary suggestive visual metaphors and ritual ecstasy, and through a very inventive expression, it explores the universal questions about reasons for the existence of evil in human history as well as the tragic mechanisms of its cruel dialectics."
The MESS's audience did also judge History Circus very well, placing it right after the plays Woman, alone by Bob Meyer and The end of the party (game) performed by Teatrina Giuliare.
Outside of the official concurrence, The Yugoslav Drama Theatre performed with great success also the play of Biljana Srbljanović Locusts directed by Dejan Mijač.
THREE PREMIERES IN NOVEMBER
The Night of Assassins by Hose Triana on the stage of the Bojan Stupica Theatre
“There are countries, as for instance Serbia, where there is always an ‘air’ of waiting – waiting for something to happen, either a closure of an époque, a regime, a so called ‘circumstance’ or, even more often, that somebody (else) will do something that may ultimately change and improve our lives, so that we can start anew and be happier...
In The Night of Assassins Lalo is dreaming about killing his parents. He sees this as the only way to begin his own life more essentially. He wishes to break up with his personal and collective heritage, believing it to be the only path to a comlpetely ‘new story’. On many points this is also typical 'Serbian' situation: as we broke up with the heritage of Slobodan Milošević we started a new life. But we haven't really began it yet, because we're still in a state of ‘transition’…
The other character in the play is Cuca who is petrified by the idea of changes as well as the state of transition. She believes that what she has got now is better that what she may get in an other circumstance, and that she will never have as much as she does now in the case of the murder of the parents. This constitutes the mayor conflict in the piece.
The author Hose Triana participated in the Cuban revolution and has an actual reference on the revolutionary period. The parents in the play seem pretty much as the last prerevolutionary Cuban ruler. The critics in the play aims partly on him, partly on Castro... With this piece the author probably wants to tell that ‘Yes, I am for the revolution, but not in this way.’ There can be no true change without real understanding of the past. To understand the past means to rise above it. And only then can we be free to move on.”
Director of the play Marko Manojlović (Taken from the program of the play)
The Killers Night by Hose Triana is directed by Marko Manojlović and played by Milica Mihajlović, Branislav Trifunović and Sena Đorović.
The Arabian Night by Roland Schimmelpfennig on the stage of Studio YDT
“Even if this is not an explicitly politically engaged piece, I would really like to know what does actually happen in these so called 'blocks' of the suburban periphery in places like Berlin, Marseilles, Rotterdam – or, why not, New Belgrade? During the last decade of the 20th century, these places have become unique 'melting pots' of multiethnic (non)solidarity and subculture. We do, in fact, live in a time when the second or even third generation of Islamic immigrants, our young neighbours, do feel more and more European, thereby finding themselves in a steadily growing cleft between pop-culture and the mullah. On the other hand, they simultaneously impose a deep and irreversible change upon the 'original' Europeans, without them actually being aware of it – yet. The Orient is no longer exotica, but is slowly and surely becoming an equal part of our everyday, whose banality – therefore Schimmelpfennig’s obsessive attention to irrelevant details which leave us unexcited – sometimes manages to be opened up…
Director of the play Ljubiša Matić (taken from the program of the play)
The Arabian Night by Roland Schimmelpfennig is directed by Ljubiš? Matić and played by Ljubomir Bandović, Nataša Marković, Jelena Ilić, Nikola Vujović, Nemanja Oliverić.
Hunting Cockroaches
The second premiere on the stage of the Studio YDT is Janusz Glowacki's drama Hunting Cockroaches.
The Polish author Janusz Glowacki, beside dramas, also writes short stories, novels, screenplays, essays... His fame in Europe started with the drama Cinders that was staged with great success on the Royal Court in London in 1981. Glowacki emigrated to New York in 1982 during the period of emergency state in Poland. His play about emigrant artists Hunting Cockroaches, after being initially performed in the River Art Repertoire Theatre in Woodstock (New York), has until now been staged more than forty times in various forms in theatres all over the United States. It has also been seen in Sydney, Toronto, Marseilles, Lyon, Geneva and Brussels (with Jean-Louis Trintignant in the main role). Glowacki has particularly been focused on the cultural encounter of civilisations between Eastern Europeans and the West, and their following destinies and fortunes in that world. Other renown dramas by Janusz Glowatcki are: Antigone in New York, The Fourth Sister, Fortinbrass Gets Drunk and others.
Hunting Cockroaches on the stage of Studio YDT is directed by Veljko Mićunović and played by: Dragan Petrović-Pele, Nataša Ninković, Milan Prljeta, Andjelika Simić and Marko Baćović.
Prizes On The First Festival Of Montenegrin Theatre
The Yugoslav Theatre of Drama participated on the first Festival of Montenegrin Theatre, held in the National Montenegrin Theatre in Podgorica from the 2nd to 12th October 2007, with the performance Don Krsto by Vida Ognjenovich in a co production by The Yugoslav theatre of Drama and the Festival "Grad teatar Budva" (City Theatre Budva).
The international festival jury (Marko Kovačević, professor on the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo, Bojan Munjin, theatre critic of the "Feral" magazine in Split, directors Marija Perović and Blagota Eraković and the professor on the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Cetinje Siniša Jelušić) decided to reward the actor Igor Đorđević with the Best Actor Award for his role of Bruno in the performance Don Krsto as well as with a Special Prize for his role of Jimmy in the performance Turn back in Rage. The actress Đurđija Cvetić received the Award for the Best Female Episode Role for her roles of Aunt Lucia and Olympia in the staging of the Don Krsto.
Jubilatory 60th season opened by premiere of Don Krsto by Vida Ognjenovic
In the play Don Krsto, we see Vida Ognjenovic the playwright writing a play bordering on comedy, as she was when she wrote and directed her plays My Name Is Mitar, How To Make The Master Laugh or Has There Been The Prince’s Dinner… Vida Ognjenovic has dramaturgically conceived the fate of her minion (she does love her honourable Don Krsto) between chamber dialogues and operatic mass scenes. This is what makes the production particularly interesting. It is almost only in the dialogues between the characters, face to face with Don Krsto, that we discover a cleric full of secular urges, between him and his ‘twin brother’, between him and the charlatan water-seeker (mind you, not god-seeker! It would be thus if the play was set in Nizhniy Novgorod) and the beautiful Lucia. People like Kristiforo Ivanovic, called Krsto, were the canons of the time, not walking saints, and especially not the writers of libretti and love sonnets. It is all about amorous allusions… In the times of Don Krsto, it seems they never exaggerated in any direction – they were neither paedophiles nor ascetics. Not a thought of it! Especially not in the pen and imagination of Vida Ognjenovic.
Jovan Cirilov, ‘His Own Skin Was Too Small For Him’, Politika, August 25 2007
The production of Don Krsto was premiered on August 17 at Grad Teatar Festival in Budva. The premiere is on October 6 on Ljuba Tadic Stage of Yugoslav Drama Theatre.
Coming up…
Barbelo, of Dogs And Children
The new play by Biljana Srbljanovic, Barbelo, Of Dogs And Children, will be produced for the first time on Ljuba Tadic Stage in November, directed by Dejan Mijac. The cast is as follows: Nebojša Glogovac, Mirjana Karanović, Jasmina Avramović, Nikola Đuričko, Ana Sofrenović, Jelena Đokić, Goran Šušljik, Toni Laurenčić, Marko Baćović, Nikola Rakočević ...
In history of Christianity, barbelo is a term that indicates the first emanation of God, his primeval origin, primeval cause, primeval principle, a metaphysical region from which everything originates, including ourselves. In a strictly religious sense, Barbelo is Hebrew for God, Greek for ‘the first thought’ and the most important translation is – the womb of the world. In medieval paintings, the birth of Jesus is often represented as taking place in a cave in the shape of the womb, as if the entire world comes from there.
For me, Barbelo is mother’s womb, a safe, warm place, out of time and before the beginning of everything, the womb of Madonna too, for example, but also that of any other mother.
Anyone who wishes to do so, can find more about it in Gnostic gospels, but religious dimension is by no means crucial, quite the contrary.
Barbelo is where we come from and where many would like to go back and hide, and everyone is free to choose what that place is.
Biljana Srbljanović
Arabic Night
Roland Schimmelpfennig was born in Gottingen. He worked in Istanbul as a journalist and writer, and then studied directing, became artistic director of Kammerspiel Teater in Munich, and as of last year also the writer in residence of Deutsches Theater in Berlin. Among young German dramatists, Schimmelpfennig is the one with the most produced plays (Push Up 1-3, Before/After, Woman From The Past etc.), but also a playwright who moves in other, still unexplored dramaturgical pathways of contemporary theatre: he is the author of construction and the art of fugue. In all of his plays he experiments with dramatic narrative techniques, so that Arabic Night too is a play in five voices in which presentation and narration merge.
Ljubisa Matic graduated from the department of theatre and radio directing of the Faculty Of Drama Arts in Belgrade. This is his first production at a professional theatre. The cast of Arabic Night is Ljubomir Bandović, Nataša Marković, Jelena Ilić, Nikola Vujović, Nemanja Oliverić.
We are profoundly shaken and saddened by the news of the death of Nenad Bogdanović, a great, brave, able and honourable man whose passing on left behind a great void, but also an example of a statesman who had shown that efficiency and being high-principled are not mutually exclusive in one’s work as a politician. With his departure, Belgrade lost an extraordinary mayor, our culture a genuine ally, and Yugoslav Drama Theatre both a patron and a friend.
Yugoslav Drama Theatre
In Memoriam
Faruk Begoli (February 14 1944 – August 22 2007)
It is with sadness and profound respect that we remember Faruk Begoli, one of the great actors from the region of former Yugoslavia, the news of whose sudden death stunned us. He spent the past years in Pristina, where, having retired from the stage, he engaged in pedagogical work at the Youth Theatre. His achievements in theatre, television and particularly film are unforgettable, in works that are nowadays considered to be classics of Yugoslav cinema (Pogled u zenicu sunca, Podne, San, Jutro, Vuk sa Prokletija, Bitka na Neretvi, Derviš i smrt, Čuvar plaže u zimskom periodu...).
At Yugoslav Drama Theatre, he played in Hamlet by William Shakespeare, directed by Stevo Zigon, premiered on January 22, 1971.