Jovan Steria Popović was an educator who wrote Baked pumpkin kao educational comedy against the superficial acceptance of fashion (Fema), and in the name of a healthy national spirit (brother Mitar and daughter Evica). The director made a twist in the interpretation Dejan Mijač which showed Fema not only as a "subdued gourd", but as a woman who wants to get out of the Paor fungus. It was later adopted by director Egon Savin and has been the standard of theatrical interpretation ever since. Just as Shylock is no longer just a vengeful Jew, so we don't play Fema as a madwoman to be laughed at.
Director Iva Milošević's conception tries to radicalize this well-known approach to the play. Mitar (Slobodan Beštić) and Evica (Iva Milanović) are not people from the people of simple taste and sound reasons, but sloppy ruffians. Beštić as brother Mitar walks around shaggy, in rubber boots and a worn leather coat (costume designer Boris Čakširan). Evica has the manners of a lumberjack and looks like a caricature of a peasant woman. Her chosen one, Vasilije (Dragan Sekulić) is not only rude but also dirty. To make the "atmosphere" complete, set designer Gorčin Stojanović installed a wooden field toilet in the yard. From everything, one could conclude that the characters are not only dirty, rude and simple, but also poor. However, Mitar is not poor in the piece, and not even in the play - it is said several times in the play that he and his late brother-in-law (Femi's husband) are wealthy citizens who acquired their property on their own. What made them rich? Set designer Gorčin Sojanović offered a "tickling" idea. In the background are some kind of scaffolding - a building is being built. Those scaffoldings indicate that the action of the play has been transferred to modern times. The general opinion is that today those who got into a position to build apartments cheaply and sell them expensively have become very rich. If the piece had been completely modernized, Mitar and his brother-in-law could have been construction contractors. The audience would believe that such types are unscrupulous materialists and would automatically side with Femi. However, the question would arise as to what to do with the language of the piece, which is deeply rooted in the first half of the 19th century. Because, a piece Baked pumpkin is a canonical play because it talks about "submissiveness" through language and not only through characters. When writing this piece, Steria advocated for the vernacular, and that's why he values the simple vernacular spoken by Mitar. The language that Fema and Ružičić speak is born from the people and that is why these two characters are funny. Playwright Molina Udovicki Fotez and director Iva Milošević did not dare to "dismantle" and "recontextualize" Sterija's language, but they still wanted to modernize the play, and that is why numerous noises in theater signs arose.
U Baked pumpkin the main question is what to do with the character of Fema. Fema is a widow who has a daughter to marry, but she herself is very alive and eager for life in every sense. Interestingly, Fema has been a widow for about as long as Gertrude To Hamlet. However, she is not reproached for her unfaithfulness to her dead husband, but for her desire to radically change her life. Due to her habitus, her energy and her age, Nataša Ninković got the opportunity to play this character at the right moment, and that is important. Nataša Ninković plays Fema as a woman who sincerely believes in her phantasm. When Fema talks about her dreams, the actress has a "shortened" look to the side, like a person who sees in front of her what she is talking about, which actually does not exist. This procedure is repeated and thanks to it, we believe that Fema is sincere in its aspirations. This Fema is even touching when she lovingly caresses her canabe, whom she genuinely admires and who makes her really happy. The sparkling white salon is obviously cleaner and nicer than the Polish toilet and we have to give it to Femi. Vladimir Pejković's music discreetly underscores this feeling of tenderness and understanding for the character's delusions. Feminine costumes look like replica dresses from expensive Dorćol boutiques for "bridesmaids and their godmothers", but they are more camp than tasteless. And that so-called camp can be explained by the desire of the director and costume designer to justify Fema. The only problem is that Fema is dressed in a modern costume, and it is not excluded from the play's text that she is an opančara's wife. An even bigger problem is that Steria's language, the language of comedy, insists on an emotional distance from the main character. The director's desire to "defend" Fema and the writer's intention to "condemn" her experienced a complete collision at the end of the play. Not wanting to end the play the way Steria ends the play (Fema accepts to live according to Mitrov in exchange for a promise to travel to Paris one day), the director and playwright "cut off" the end of the play. In the play, all the characters go over to Mitra's side unmotivated, and Fema remains alone in her living room. She talks to herself (crazy?) and lies down on the couch - asleep? Died? At the end, construction workers from the second plan appeared and fenced off the Femin Salon construction site with an orange fence. Who are these people? Who could have usurped the property of the deceased opancar, if the main conflict in the piece is around Mitra's struggle to prevent Fema from "breaking up the house" and Fema's desire to spend the money as she wishes? The director, scenographer and playwright seemed to want to introduce some third force that does not exist in the play, but they failed to connect it with the basis of the dramatic conflict. That's why the end of the play seems like an effective gesture that confuses us - this Fema ends up in another play and in another genre.
The "victims" of that genre misunderstanding are all the characters. It seems that Slobodan Beštić fared the worst, as if he didn't believe himself when he played the ruffian Mitra. If he is really so cruelly consistent, why does he accept that Sara and Ružičić eat his barbecue? If he "won" why doesn't he stay in the salon but retire to his side of the stage? Sena Đorović (Sara), Iva Milanović (Evica), Ivana Šćepanović (Ančica), Aleksandar Vučković (apprentice Jovan) and Dragan Sekulić (Vasilije) tried to be entertaining with a caricature approach. That might be enough in a quick and easy comedy, but not in a play that has the ambition to shift the genre of classic comedy. Aleksandar Đurica seems to fit in the best because he plays Ružičić as a man who has the same problem as Fema. His Ružičić sincerely believes in his ideas and is ready to get carried away and ignore the facts of life because of it. But if this is really the director's intention, why does he also go to Mitra's side? Are the creators of this play trying to tell us that money conquers all these days? That is one of the possible questions, but we are not sure that it is the main one. We are not even entirely sure whether that question was even important to the authors of the play or whether it is just our loading of meaning. In contemporary theatre, we may not have the answers, but it is good that we at least agree on the questions.
