A macabre ritual

Our roles have long been divided: that's roughly what one of the heroes of the play says Pred pension Thomas Bernhardt. It could be said, however, that this principle does not only apply to the characters from the specific play, but that it is recognized as a feature of the author's entire narrative and dramatic oeuvre. In most of his works, there is a standard constellation of roles and relationships, which vary with smaller or larger differences, but not with a significantly different outcome: bizarre relationships in a closed family environment from higher civil, often intellectual strata, which obsessively confirm the author's diagnosis of a deep the pathology of (Austrian) society as a syndrome of general hopelessness of existence. In a piece Pred pension, that standard igra the role gets another, special and specific level.

Bernhard's recognizable figures world comedies - an unmarried brother and two unmarried sisters who tear each other apart in an unhealthy family symbiosis - perform another show: they celebrate the birthday of the infamous SS commander Himmler, who saved them and enabled them, by concealing the Nazi past of brother Rudolph, to integrate very successfully into the post-war society. The preparations and realization of this, the biggest family celebration, all with the obsessive ironing of the Nazi uniform and the nostalgic viewing of photos from the camp where Rudolph was the deputy commander, have a ritualistic, theatrical character. As in Genet's macabre ritual, To the maids, and here is the dressing and igra the role a way for a closed and sick community to realize or confirm its darkest urges, tendencies and "values", which it hides in the outside world under the mask of social appropriateness. The title of the play has two implications: it critically points out that people who, in the privacy of their homes, celebrate Nazi holidays, without problems reach retirement in respectable positions in "democratic" societies, but also discreetly hints that, upon retirement, and as a result extra time and lack of obligations, the criminal may have to, finally and deeply, face himself.

This aspect of fetishization, ritualization and theatricalization is also present in the performance of the "Bojan Stupica" Theater (Yugoslav Drama Theater), but it develops from a basically realistic stage play. The basis for such a stage play is a credible representation of the urban interior (scenography by Jasmine Holbus) and adequate clothes of the hero (costumes by Lana Cvijanović). Consistently realizing some of the writer's suggestions and devising additional, diverse scenes vignettes, the director from Sarajevo, Dino Mustafić, significantly played up Bernhard's typical monologue structure, which is static and devoid of elaborate action. In addition to developing a more dynamic, plastic and realistic stage action, these directorial solutions sharpen, with their mild metaphoricity, the aforementioned aspect. macabre rituals in the Hellers' family celebration. This effect is achieved by stage metaphors with a dramatic charge and those that are grotesquely colored: Rudolph and Vera have an incestuous relationship while, groping for the new frame of Himmler's portrait, they gently touch each other with their fingers, the sisters examine their Nazi accessory with Heidi kikki and camp blouses, Vera fetishistically unites her Nazis and incestuous fantasies by marching in her brother's boots...

The interweaving of elements of the emphasized grotesque and the developed psychologization is primarily observed in the acting. Mirjana Karanović reliably portrays the character of the obsessive, strict and fundamentally insensitive sister Vera, madly devoted to her brother Rudolf, but she sometimes underlines these traits too much, illustrates them through the grotesque. Grotesque prevails in Branislav Lečić's energetic play rich in numerous and varied acting tools as Rudolph, who seems to be the sickest of all members of the Heller family. In contrast to these achievements, Milica Mihajlović's play is dominated by the exciting, although in some scenes overemphasized, dramatic elaboration of the character of the disabled sister, Klara, who, in this interpretation, is portrayed as a victim of the family; the dramatic charge of this role is especially felt as Clara silently observes, with contempt, what is happening between her sister and brother.

This distinction between the two acting styles also has important implications in the meaning field of the play. It explicitly and sharply contrasts the grotesque figures of Rudolph and Vera, pathological and villainous personalities, with the realistic figure of the innocent victim Clara, who is not different and threatened only because she is disabled, but also because she is a convinced leftist. This is especially evident in the second part of the play, in which the director directly defines Clara's position as rebellious; she sings the Internationale and, in various ways, subverts Himmler's birthday celebration. This kind of directorial approach is legitimate, it is also justified by the context in which it was created, which still requires clear and explicit ideological and, above all, ethical demarcations and positioning.

However, although somewhat justified, the director's reading of Dino Mustafić is somewhat reductionist, because it simplifies the complexity of Bernhard's world view and, in the first place, significantly threatens his general cynicism. Namely, in the drama Pred pension there is no division into good i Bad, Klara is basically a victim, but she is also an accomplice in that sick and criminal family union. No matter how direct and unrelenting Bernhard's political stance is, the author does not allow himself to fall into tendency; his anthropological pessimism and cynicism, in the final turn, relativizes every ideological determination. Therefore, the propagandistic effect is not the result of the text itself, as a respected colleague claims, but of the director's concept... But, all this is just a principled polemic with a well-thought-out and self-rounded setting that achieves a high artistic standard.