Which plays from 2023 brought aesthetic innovations in terms of direction, which had significant acting achievements and which have something new and important to tell us, as chosen by the critic "Vremena"
These are the days of reviewing the results and recalling the successes of the past year. Marina Milivojević Madjarev, Zoran Janković and Đorđe Bajić, and Nađa Ivanji Švab, who write in "Vremen" about new theater plays, films, and exhibitions, each chose the five best titles of 2023.
These are theater plays chosen by Marina Milivojević Madjarev.
I compiled my list of the five best theater plays trying to answer the following questions: which plays brought aesthetic innovations to our theater in terms of direction, which plays had significant acting achievements, and which plays have something new and important to tell us in terms of subject matter , that is, of the text they deal with.
1. Slobodan Selenić "Fathers and Fathers", director Veljko Mićunović - National Theater Belgrade
The dramatization of Kate Đarmati follows Selenić's ideological determination, and "packs" his story and ideas into a contemporary theatrical form that opens a new angle of viewing the novel. She follows the basic plot line of the novel, but gives it in a fragmentary form, insisting equally on the meaning of the text, the sound of the spoken words, the rhythm of the sentence and the power of the gesture. From a theatrical point of view, it was a very wise choice because it "pulled" the dramatization away from realism (which is implicitly contained in the structure of the novel, and which is often banal on stage) and "brought" it into the "field" of stage research of the text as a sound image. . On stage we listen to songs, we listen to how certain words and voices of the Serbian language sound, how the rhythm of speech develops, how words are connected to gestures and how all this together forms a portrait of a family and its social milieu.
The organization of the stage space (set designer Zorana Petrov) is also unrealistic and meaningfully stimulating. Instead of a civil apartment, the action of the play is transferred to a space that has something of an amphitheater in it that could be located in a theater, university or courtroom. In this way, the play becomes a trial, or rather a judgment of the characters, where they are their own prosecutors, accused, lecturers and actors, and we are the jury, that is, the audience that makes its own judgment about everything. This judgment for director Veljko Mićunović is very intimate and personal. He is not interested in investigating what the communists want, but how the sentence I wish you were dead sounds and resonates between father, son and mother.
In the play, Elizabeta Medaković is played by actress Vanja Eidus. She knows how to play a character that the audience needs to understand emotionally and to critically see the situation in which the character is at the same time. Elizabeth Vanje Eidus deeply experiences everything that happens to her and her loved ones while maintaining composure and the ability to understand the overall situation
The play "Fathers and Fathers" has a good measure of the generally accepted aesthetic and social values that the name of Slobodan Selenić carries with it and the contemporary theatrical tendencies brought by Kata Đarmati, Veljko Mićunović, artistic collaborators and the acting ensemble of the National Theatre.
2. Florian Zeller "Father", director Paolo Maghelli - "Atelier 212"
Although Florian Zeller's piece is a modern dramaturgy - a fragmentary, non-linear story, short quick lines... it is at the same time a classic piece in the best sense of the word. We follow the whole story from the perspective of the main character, everything revolves around him and the piece is designed to show the great actor of the older generation in full format. Director Paolo Maggeli directs the piece in exactly the same way - he opens up space for excellent actors and puts everything (set design by Darko Nedeljković, costumes by Leo Kulaš) at the service of acting.
Voja Brajović plays Andrej, a father who is suffering from dementia. He plays a father as a man who is convinced that everything is fine with him, but that strange things are happening with his daughter. Watching Voja Brajović in the role of the demented Andrej, it seems to us that we have seen many important roles of this actor in one role - Dimitri in "Powder Keg", Matamor in "Theatrical Illusions", Žutilov in "The Lovers"...
Hana Selimović plays a daughter who finds herself in a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, she is an adult and responsible person, and on the other hand, she is her father's daughter who is the last to admit to herself and others what is happening with him. Delicately and carefully, Hana Selimović showed us how rationality and composure become a mask under which the obvious fact is revealed that the child never disappears in an adult. The child in the adult woman cannot accept the fact that the man she once feared is disappearing before her eyes, and that she can do nothing to save him.
The play "Father" by Atelier 212 has a good measure of current topics, effective dramaturgy and excellent acting.
3. "Clarification of the case of a series of murders by poisoning in the Ćupri district in the seventies of the 19th century", director Anđelka Nikolić, co-production of the Knjaževsko-Serbian Theater Kragujevac, Puls Theater Lazarevac, Village Cultural Center Markovac and Art Group Hop.La!
The play "Illustrating the Case of a Series of Murders by Poisoning in the Ćuprija District in the Seventies of the 19th Century" has a structure that is exactly what its title suggests - an extensive, narrated theatrical study created on the basis of an abundance of documentary materials from the fields of history, ethnography, sociology, law and human rights. rights. All the stories we heard, saw and experienced in this play are connected by the same thematic framework - judicial investigations into murders by poisoning that were committed within the family and for which the wives of the deceased were usually blamed in court. What we see crystal clearly is the position of women in Serbian society in the 19th century. That position was determined by the patriarchal unwritten laws and the laws of the newly formed principality of Serbia, which were often even harsher and more unjust than the unwritten laws, in the desire to present the government as advanced and efficient.
The intention of the director Anđelka Nikolić was to draw the audience into her play and make them a participant in the trial. This was achieved in such a way that the audience sits in a circle, and the actresses (Ivana Nedeljković, Jasmina Dimitrijević, Jelena Cvijetić, Katarina Mitrović and Maja Jovanović Spasojević) sit among us, occasionally entering the center of the circle, i.e. stage.
The actresses play with a distance in relation to the character but with occasional expressive moments (a striking gesture or speaking in dialect) which aim to make a difference between the numerous characters played by only a few actresses. However, the goal of the play is not acting bravado in the portrayal of different characters, but concentrated and persistent telling of different stories about the same topic - violence against women and a woman's attempt to defend herself from violence with violence when there is no other way out. Also, it's important to note that this is a show about women, that it was created by a woman, that it stars women, and that 90% of the audience is also women. That is why the performance spontaneously becomes a kind of construction of a new, contemporary female identity based on a critical examination of the patriarchal legacy.
4. Jaroslav Hašek "Švejk", director Veljko Mićunović, Belgrade Drama Theatre
The play "Svejk" was created on the basis of Hašek's "The Good Soldier Švejk", one of the most beautiful novels about war from the perspective of the so-called. little man. The dramatization was signed by Kata Đarmati and Slobodan Obradović, and the director is Veljko Mićunović. The director and the playwrights did not give in to the temptation to give us lectures and teach us what to think about the chosen topic, but through humor and absurdity they expose the way the war machine influences the so-called. little people. The play provokes us to think about the position of the little man in war, about the absurdity of the system, about various rascals who use the general misfortune for their personal charm, about a man who would not get involved in war, but war always gets involved in his life.
This performance owes much of its success to Ozren Grabarić, who is outstanding as Švejk. Grabarić's Švejk is apparently slow and dull, but when he is really threatened, he shows that he has a sharp mind and understands everything very well, but he pretends to be ignorant (the uninitiated would say that he is stupid) because that is the way for a good man to survive in bad times . He throws aphorisms and sentences elegantly and wittily. Although it does not try to entertain us, we are entertained while confronting us with unpleasant truths about modern wars that we persistently turn our heads away from, pretending that they do not concern us.
5. a) "The Future", director Žiga Divjak, co-production of the Belgrade Drama Theater and the Ljubljana Municipal Theater
In his statements, the director says that he started from the SF bestseller "Ministry of the Future", in which the writer Kim Stanley Robinson deals with climate change and the ecological future of the world, and the book dedicated to bird species that are dying out - "Ways of Flight" by Thom van Dooren (Thom van Dooren). .
The events on the stage are accompanied by a subtitle whose content is inspired by the mentioned books, and which talks about the fate of the species of birds that are dying out: the Laysan albatross (lives in the waters of the Pacific Ocean), the little penguin (lives on the coast of Australia) and the Hawaiian crow. The text is somewhat similar to the text spoken by the actor David Attenborough in his famous shows about life on planet Earth, with the exception that there is no suggestive voice, but you read the subtitle yourself. Fortunately, there aren't too many subtitles so you're not in the silly situation of choosing whether you want to read the subtitles or follow the action on stage. This is good because the text does not interfere with the performance, but if you pay attention to the text, which is not much (but there is enough!), it gives a special meaning to the events on stage.
The scene represents a sandy beach where tourists gather with appropriate props (suitcases on wheels, towels, beach chairs...). The actors playing tourists (Bernard Oman, Gregor Gruden, Lara Wolf, Iztok Drabik Jug, Gregor Zorc, Lotos Šparovec, Milena Vasić, Jana Bjelica, Marija Pikić, Milan Zarić, Stefan Starčević and Milan Kolak) seem to behave like people on the beach, but also like birds. That is, reading the subtitle and observing what is happening on the stage, one gets a strong impression of the closeness of two such different species as humans and albatrosses. For example, when the title shows a text about how albatrosses live in flocks and carefully search for a soul mate, on the stage, among the tourists lying on the beach, there is a movement in which people (like albatross) are looking for a person close to them, moving, crowding ... The action on stage sometimes follows the text, and sometimes it is in counterpoint to the text, so that various interpretations of the meeting of the text and the action impose themselves. A curious and active viewer can really enjoy this game of meaning loading.
The climax of the scene is a wild party in which some of the humanoid inhabitants of the beach wear animal costumes, while we, reading the subtitles, sincerely fear for the fate of the world. After that, while we are listening to the story of the crow that mourns over the killed other, an armed man appears, and then a courier from one of the popular courier services that delivers food and other necessities. We get kind of sad and even angry because of the accumulation of plastic and the suffering of the little Hawaiian crow, the Australian penguin and the Laysan albatross.
Žiga Divjak and his actors really succeeded in making us feel compassion for the suffering of unfortunate animals. Environmental problems and the extinction of species are global problems, but above all they are local problems, and it is therefore a great pity that this fact escaped this play. But even so, this highly aestheticized and, for our conditions, innovative play is a rare bird in our theater sky.
5. b) William Shakespeare "Titus Andronicus", director Andraš Urban, Yugoslav Drama Theater
Director Andraš Urban found a simple, modern and logical explanation for us - everything that happens in "Titus Andronicus" is the result of war, war crimes, that is, the search for personal justice that turns into revenge that produces a war crime. Director Andraš Urban is also a set designer. The scenography is reduced and the main element is the trailer of the refrigerator truck from which the bags with corpses are taken out and in which the main crimes take place - the association with real events in previous wars in these areas is more than clear.
Livija's (Jovana Belović) wailing in the truck makes our hair stand on end. When she is taken out of the truck in bloody nylon, she becomes a metaphor for human suffering. It is especially poignant that we read all the character's emotions on the face of this actress as if we understand what she is saying. Opposite the "articulated" face is a voice that mutters indistinctly, giving the scene a creepy dimension. Jovana Belović brilliantly plays a woman who cannot speak because her tongue has been cut off, but she persistently wants to point out the villains and demand justice. There is a moving scene when she persistently and unsuccessfully tries to say the word justice on the megaphone, but no one hears her, and no one understands her. In a mumbling monologue, she transforms from a wounded being seeking justice to a furious avenger.
Who does not like that, who does not have the stomach to face the madness of war in full format, who thinks that art should be beautiful and theater should help us relax, should not go to see "Titus Andronicus" at JDP . This is a show for those who believe that art must speak about important and uncomfortable topics that most would rather remain silent about.
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