On Thursday, February 13, on the stage of the Puls Theater in To Lazarevac the premiere of the author's work was performed performances Serbian youth, Dimitrije Tucović directed by Zlatko Paković. During the socialist Yugoslavia, Dimitrije Tucović was celebrated and studied as one of the founders of socialist ideas in Serbia. And then, during the eighties, nineties and 2000s, a radical shift from socialist and Yugoslav ideas to liberal and national ideas took place, and the legacy of Dimitrije Tucović fell into oblivion. This is our age in which we are looking for a way out of the crisis, perhaps it is a good time to examine the ideas of Dimitrije Tucović and other socialists from a new angle. However, the play called Serbian youth, Dimitrije Tucović it is not about the life and work of fighters for a fairer society, as one would expect based on the title, but a theatrical treatise on the deviations of modern society caused by the lack of social justice. The ideas of Dimitrije Tucović and their legacy are the inspiration for this theatrical treatise and it is, from the point of view of contemporary artistic practice, a legitimate procedure.
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In the desire to explain his own point of view as clearly and comprehensively as possible, the author introduced many important themes into the text of the play. He began by asserting that each of us is responsible for our own actions and not for the actions of others, but if we remain silent and tolerate injustice, we become accomplices. After setting the introductory thesis, the author rediscovers forgotten historical stories and connects them with contemporary problems: he talks about the revolutionary Spasenia Cana Babović, whom he claims was inspired by the ideas of Dimitrije Tucović; about the exploitation of children in factories, which was witnessed by Tucović himself; about the attitude of father Dimitrije Tucović, protégé Jevrem Tucović, towards the problem of child poverty; about how the modern church is insensitive to the suffering of the poor; about the illusion of the possibility of personal enrichment of "white-collar workers" while contributing to the humiliation and dehumanization of "blue-collar workers"; about the lack of empathy and feeling for the common good as the key reason for the tragedy in "Ribnikar"; about the president of the country and the richest man in the country as the main culprits for the lack of social justice in Serbia... The dramaturgical rhythm of the play is built, apart from the interweaving of different stories, and songs in the style of Brechtian dramaturgy. The author combines a satirical poem by Jovan Jovanović Zmaj, a poem by the revolutionary Milan Apich, a treatment of Brecht's poetry and recitatives in which he expresses his position on a certain topic. A lot of interesting ideas and information roared past us in an hour and a quarter. It's a pity that the performance cannot be seen as an exhibition - to stop next to the part that particularly interests us and to study it in peace. In contemporary art, it would not be impossible, but it would require funds that, it is certain, far exceed the budget and other resources available to Puls Theater.
But despite the abundance of material, the audience does not have the feeling that it is "buried" with ideas and sensations. On the contrary, everything is neatly arranged and causally connected by a firm guiding idea which reads - the topic of social justice has disappeared from view, and without it there is no upbringing and education. That is why Paković wants to educate and educate his audience. The whole performance takes place on the stage of the large hall of the Lazarevac CK. The actors emerge from the audience onto a narrow, long catwalk that divides the audience into two groups that look at each other. The horizontal is intended for acting, and the vertical serves to bring objects onto the stage with the help of sticks that are a metaphor for a certain idea: a trough with church candles, a perforated target, a national flag. The only horizontal metaphor is the transparent suitcase or purse carried by the villains, in which something like coal is placed - an important natural resource that is mined in the vicinity of Lazarevac, and which is the subject of many unsolved corruption cases. The characters are black and white: an evil capitalist, an evil murderer boy and his mother, an evil representative of the "white collars", and a good revolutionary, modern worker, Dimitrije Tucović, his proto-father and the father of a sick child. Everything that the author of the play, Zlatko Paković, uses in this play, including vertical and horizontal, acting, music and dance, all serve to "impress" the message of the play into the viewer's head. That is why one gets the impression that the play is reduced, almost stingy in its expression and ideas. It could be treated as
the lack of a play, but it is also quite typical of Paković's instructive theater.
In this play, the actors are theatrical advocates of the author's ideas. They tell us stories, they present to us, they address us, they convince us and here and there they make a powerful acting gesture that touches the audience. One of those moments is when the actress Ivana Nedeljković, dressed in black, presents the inner drama of the mother of the mass murderer from "Ribnikar" by putting lipstick on her mouth, and then scribbles black lipstick on her face and body - movements that seem to cut the skin and make lipstick scars. In doing so, he speaks the lament of a mother who would have been happier to have given birth to her own Orestes or Oedipus than to have given birth to Herostratus (the young man who burned down the famous temple in Ephesus just to become famous). That image of a black-haired woman in a black costume, who is all smeared with black lipstick and with a purse full of black coal is shocking. The scene when Jelena Cvijetić plays the disenfranchised modern worker Vukosava, who suffers abuse at work, economic misery and obvious injustice with incredible resignation, is also touching. The calm, kind and blank face of the modern worker and her flat tone of speech while she tells about the injustices she experiences every day, create a very impressive theatrical image. The same actress plays the revolutionary Spasenia Babović. The actress then walks completely differently, speaks and has a different facial expression - the same actress, but two completely different acting energies. With this doubling, the director may have wanted to tell us that in every oppressed person "squats" a hidden revolutionary. This could be explained because his desire is not to "wear down" us with a situation of invincible corruption, but to make the audience angry and riot. At the end of the play, there is mention of young people who will appear and who will fall in love with freedom - the target is probably the student blockades and the struggle of students to respect the law.
That's why at the end of the play, quotes from the modern Constitution of Serbia are recited. It insists on Article 2 of the Constitution, which states: "Sovereignty comes from citizens who exercise it through a referendum, popular initiative and through their freely elected representatives." No state body, political organization, group or individual can usurp sovereignty from the citizens, nor establish power beyond the freely expressed will of the citizens". Calling on the audience, i.e. the citizens, to restore the stolen sovereignty, the actors call for a strike and a general strike. This is where we come to real life, where the situation is much more complicated than in educational theater. Namely, while the actors are calling for a strike from the stage, some theaters are actually on strike and not playing shows as a form of solidarity with students. Because if the students gave up what is important to them, which is listening to classes, and invited the citizens to follow their example, then, perhaps, it is logical that theaters do not play plays. But then how to observe the premiere of the play Serbian youth, Dimitrije Tucović? The answer could be that revolutionary plays should be played in revolutionary times. But there is another problem that is much more complicated than (not) playing a play during a strike. And that is another important message of the play that is repeated several times, which reads: "The rich steal from the poor" and "The rich are a category of thieves". However, in the third part of the Constitution, which is not cited in the presentation, and which concerns the economic organization of the country and public finances, in Article 82 it is written: "Economic organization in the Republic of Serbia rests on the market economy, open and free market, freedom of entrepreneurship, independence of economic entities and equality of private and other forms of property". Article 83 also states that "entrepreneurship is free", and Article 86 states that "private property is guaranteed".
I'm not writing this to argue with the author about the Constitution - it's neither my field, nor his. I just want to ask whether this play can be seen as an indicator of change in our theater. This question came to me because, as of two weeks ago, I wrote about the performance of NP Sombor Messrs. Glembays which is very different from the aesthetics Serbian youth, Dimitrije Tucović, but they have in common that in both plays the rich are presented as thieves. From the reaction of the audience, I conclude that both performances confirm the views of many. That's why it will be interesting to see if there will be more plays with a similar idea in the coming period. This could then indicate a change in the value system, i.e. that the focus is shifting from a national to a class issue.
