How did you get into theater?
Writing theater criticism. Namely, I first wrote about the theater in "Student", and then in "Delo". Although Velibor Gligorić, at that time a manager in the JDP, was the head of the magazine "Savremenik", he was not angry with me because I worked for the competition, for "Delo".
"Write as you write for 'Delo', not boringly as you write programs for theaters," Milan Dedinac once told me.
All in all, I remember writing a review for the play The Boastful Soldier.
Plautus?
Yes, yes, Plaut... It was directed by Milan Dedinac. Next to that of Eli Finci, it was the best criticism of the Boast Soldier. At least that's what was said.
Since at that time there was no dramaturgy and theatrology, Dedinac tasked Miroslav Belović to invite me to the JDP and somehow guide me to the secret theaters.
Before that, you graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy, Group for Philosophy?
I did, yes... I was always an excellent student, all excellent grades. You're an obnoxious character who everyone was interested in. When I came to see what I was going to study in 1950, I realized that, while studying philosophy, I would continue to study physics and chemistry and aesthetics and art history and languages... So I made a decision. Miloš Đurić also taught me. I remember he knew all the names of his students.
"Where are your Cyrils from?", he asked me already in the first class.
But not just me; all students. He was an expert in ancient literature, which is why he taught.
While still at university, I started writing for "Student", for which Slobodan Selenić, Branko Pejić, Nikola Milošević wrote at the time... It was the freest newspaper of that time. We printed heretics. For example, we were the first to publish Jean-Paul Sartre. I illustrated that text myself, Sartre's script Among the Gears.
Have you met Jean-Paul Sartre?
Yes, seven years later. In 1960, Dedinac invited Sartre to the premiere of Prisoners from Altona. I was very excited. I graduated from Sartre.
We went to the Excelsior Hotel for dinner. I later wrote a poem about it, Dinner with Jean-Paul Sartre. Shall I read it to you? Everything is described there...
Read, yes…
"Thrown into the world of all the little things."
Grayer than my grayness and waste of shallow delights
Came as a concept, but one that sweats and eats and blinks and breathes
In spite of being in spite of nothingness
The menu was plentiful: blue aubergines and the thought of being and becoming
A piece of wormy cheese and some vibes about man and circumstances
And at the end, Hungarian-style pancakes and perhaps a final thought on what alienation is
I remained silent and like a gnome stalked my former teacher sideways
For essentials and vigils
But I couldn't catch his eyes or his smile
All because of that legendary strabismus and disdain for smiles
And maybe Sartre was watching me.
I didn't know that.
I remember being at the end when the dinner was fortunately irretrievably gone
On my way out, I managed to ask him the question that I had been thinking about all that historic evening
More important than all the secret dinners in the world
What do you think about?
reports
D'etre en-soi et d'etre pour-soi?
And that Sartre who is getting older and getting fatter
He replied that he usually doesn't think of anything this late
Without a smile but gently
In his disdainful gentleness was hidden the theorem of eternity that does not exist.
So, what did you ask Sartre?
I asked him what he thought about things in themselves and things for themselves, about the difference between them. You saw: he said that at that time he was usually thinking nothing.
All that night, Sartre courted Nada Gregorić, who was almost as ugly as he was. Later, our costume designer Mira Glišić consoled me.
"Do you see how Milan Dedinac, who is not considered a handsome man, is actually handsome when he sits next to Jean-Paul Sartre?", she asked me jokingly.
Important people from all over the world used to come here. Yugoslavia was also very interesting as a heretical country, which Western left-oriented intellectuals perceived as the embodiment of the new left.
Who all came here?
Living Theater, Julian Beck and Judith Malina, Peter Brook, La Mama, Grotovsky, Efros, Ljubimov, Fromm, Marcuse... They all came to BITEF.
Did Tito also come to your theater?
It is. Especially in the Yugoslav Drama Theater. In 1963, Miroslav Belović was appointed manager of JDP, and I was appointed artistic director. We often invited Tito to performances, among other things, because we knew that we would end up on the front page of Politika.
"I like to come to you," said Tito. "It's cramped in that National Theater, there's nowhere to put one's feet."
In 1963, on the occasion of the celebration of seventy years since the birth of Miroslav Krleža, Miroslav Belović and I performed his plays On the Edge of Mind and Salome on the stage of the Yugoslav Drama Theater. Tito came to the premiere. Today, I may be the only living witness who remembers the kind of relationship between Krleža and Tito.
In what way?
Very cordial. They were on "you". I remember, Krleža once wanted to show us that closeness, so he told Titu that whenever he came somewhere, there was a tense atmosphere. Tito glared at him. It was obvious that he was not pleased with Krleža's observation.
In 1963, Tito watched The Death of Danton, directed by Miroslav Belović, with Steve Žigon as Robespierre. We stood alone in the lobby of the JDP and looked at the poster for Bichner's play.
"You see, I think it would be a mistake to make a parallelism according to which I would be the side of life like Danton, opposite Stalin like Robespierre," Tito told me. "Those historical parallels are usually not good."
Otherwise, he rarely commented on the performances. He didn't know too much about theater and didn't even try to hide it from us...
INTERVIEW - JOVAN ĆIRILOV > One game is enough for one life, << TIME | BR 1216-1217 | APRIL 24, 2014
