Sreten Asanović, Nomina, Plima, Ulcinj, 2011
By: Ivana Ančić
English version will be available soon.
The Shop-Window, directed by Nataša Rajković & Bobo Jelčić, produced by: Zagrebačko kazalište mladih (ZeKaeM – Zagreb Youth Theatre)
By: Sandro Siljan
The Shop-window was produced by Zagrebačko kazalište mladih (ZeKaeM – Zagreb Youth Theatre) in 2010 and the text and the direction is signed by a well known theatrical tandem Nataša Rajković and Bobo Jelčić. What is so special about this play is that it does not take place in the theatre but in a window of a shop in Tratinska Street in Zagreb. The play also excels in participation of many non-professional actors. The performance that I saw and the one that I will write about, was preformed in October 2011, as a part of a Show Case of the Croatian Theatre, which was organised for foreign selectors by The Perforacije Festival . I have to state this, because later on I found out that there are two versions of this play. There is the domestic one, whose topics are the abandoned shops in Tratinska Street and the international one, which tells of international conflicts in our region during the last decades. So, I will write about the second one.
Before I start to write about the play, I need to say that the concept that Rajković and Jelčić use is already recognised as contemporary theatre. Its founder is a small Squat Theatre in New York. This small theatre group, consisting of Hungarian immigrants, rented a shop on the 23rd Street on Manhattan in the late 70’s. They set the audience in the window of the shop and used the street as their stage. Due to their original concept, they soon became very popular on what was then a very vibrant New York underground scene and thanks to the theoretician of performance, Richard Schechner, they became a part of history of contemporary theatre.
The fact that the idea itself is not original, does not undermine the value of Zagreb’s play, since originality in contemporary theatre is overestimated too often. I am happy to see that our institutionalised theatres take on the ideas of internationally recognised experimental troops, offering our audience a certain education and bringing life to the domestic theatre scene. It is important to say that Rajković and Jelčić did not get stuck on auto-references of the concept (in the sense of questioning the theatrical mechanism), but implemented it in social-historical problems and all production elements, especially acting, which was on a high level.
To give a clear overview of the play, I will start with what really goes on in Tratinska Street in Zagreb’s neighbourhood of Trešnjevka. The audience is set in a window of one of many abandoned shops and observes what happens on the street through the window-glass. The audience can see the fragments of a gloomy afternoon in Zagreb: the trams and the cars are sliding up and down the street, people are going home from work, some of them go in and come out of the shop on the corner, many of them push a trolley or hold their small child by the hand. They are mostly lost in their own thoughts and dressed in dark colours. While the audience observes this document of every day life in Zagreb, they start to recognise certain fictional elements that construct an uncertain story – to paraphrase a title of directors’ previous play. This uncertainty is the very core of the tension and the humour of the play: at first we can not make out the passers by from the actors, e.g. separate the accidental structure from the intentional one, so that later on, when we start to recognise conventions and actors, we are able to observe reactions of the passers by from what we recognise as theatre and they perceive as reality. The result is a humoristic effect, like candid camera.
The play provides no solid boundary between elements of fiction and reality nor is there any cause – effect narration structure which a viewer can follow. They are in a position to select the material to use in their own discourse. This encourages the viewer to question their own ways of understanding and of interpretation of reality, but also their own position as a viewer. So many possible interpretations of the play bring a viewer to a situation where they have to realise that their view of the play is not the only one and that there are many others that are as equally correct. Hence, the audience becomes a group of individual perspectives, in which every individual has to accept the views of others to be able to confirm their own. Rajković and Jelčić do not burden the viewer with authors’ discourse, but leave them the freedom to create their own. They use construction and deconstruction of narrative and fiction as means that will make the viewer question their own perception.
In the play’s epilogue, the only professional actor, Jerko Marčić will offer the authors’ interpretation. As a story-teller, this time from the inside of the window, Jerko uses a friendly tone to explain to the insecure viewer that what they just saw was a wedding between a Croatian girl and a Serbian man, during which there was a conflict on a national level between the guests. This is clearly an ironic provocation that wants to get the free interpretation of each individual in the audience into a collective interpretation demanded by the authors’ authority. This gap between the collective and the individual, between the absolute and the relative, hides the political implication of the play.
Rajković and Jelčić are very good at avoiding the trap of presenting our reality to the foreign eye (foreign selectors) as recent conflicts. They throw a glove into the face of anyone who expects anything like that, showing that that would be simplification of the events and a kind of hyper-interpretation. Unlike many artist, especially film-makers (and here I mean Kusturica because the bride’s veil reminded me of his Underground) who tried to explain the conflicts in the region through strong and closed narratives, Rajković and Jelčić refuse to formulate any type of closed discourse which would travel one-way from the stage to the audience. Instead of offering solutions, they set the viewer in front of the problem, questioning their perception of reality and self-presentation in theatre, as well as in society.
Sreten Asanović, Nomina, Plima, Ulcinj, 2011
By: Ivana Ančić
English version will be available soon.
OSMI I SEDMI PUTNIK, Aleksandar Bjelogrlić, Citadela, Agora, Zrenjanin, 201
By: Dalibor Plečić
English version will be available soon.
Stjepan Gulin, Paz’te sad, paz’te sad (Meandarmedia, Zagreb, 2011.)
Authors: Ivana Ančić
Igor Marojević, Kroz glavu (Dosije, Beograd, 2012.)
Author: Dalibor Plečić
Damir Miloš, Pisa. Povratak (Meandarmedia, Zagreb, 2011.)
Author: Morena Livaković
POLITIČKE I DRUŠTVENE KONSTRUKCIJE IDENTITETA U VIDEO-PERFORMANSIMA NA BEOGRADSKOJ SCENI 1970-ih
Esej Vladimira Bjeličića
Esej u celini možete pročitati na portalu SEEcult.org
Esej Tihane Bertek
Od promatrača do sudionika
GALERIJA KAPELICA I POST-JUGOSLAVENSKI BODY ART (1995–2010)
Esej – Bojan Krištofić
Esej o radovima Šejle Kamerić, Maje Bajević i Nebojše Šerića Shobe
Piše: Slađana Golijanin
ESEJ – Razvaline socijalizma kao inspiracija za muzejske eksponate Mrđana Bajića i skulpturalne dosetke Ivana Fijolića
By: Milena Milojević
Piše: Nino Kovačić
Gostujuća izvedba šibenskog HNK, Pir malograđana, prema tekstu mladog Bertolda Brechta (napisan 1919.) izvedena je po sljedećoj formuli: na Danima satire u satiričkom kazalištu Kerempuh gledamo satiričan komad. Prema reakcijama publike, bila je uspješna, ali teško se oteti dojmu da je smijeh bio formulaično zagarantiran, jer bi takav instruirani moment humora trebao zauzdati spontani smijeh. Je li se možda radilo o “malograđanskom” humoru?
Glumice i to, KNAP, Zagreb, premijera 12.5.2012.
Piše: Nino Kovačić
Glumice i to, nova predstava u zagrebačkom KNAP-u, neobičan su kazališni ‘slučaj’. Naime, predstavu su, dramaturški i režijski osmislile te, naravno, glumački ostvarile četiri mlade glumice. U trenutačnoj opće-društvenoj, pa tako i kazališnoj situaciji, kojom prijete olovni pojmovi poput recesije, prekarijata i outsourcinga (nedavno su najavljena i otpuštanja “hladnopogonskih” glumaca), one su, kako piše u najavi “nezaposlene i pune entuzijazma, odlučile su preuzeti stvar u svoje ruke i napraviti hit!”. Očito sklone postdramskom pristupu izvedbi koji se, između ostalog, bazira na ekipnoj work-in-progress metodi, izvedbenoj anti-iluziji i autoreferencijalnosti, glumice/autorice su se “trgnule” i napravile parodiju o tome kako rade predstavu, po ironičnom ključu: kad ne ide pravljenje predstave treba napraviti predstavu o tome kako se ne može raditi predstava.
“Nije život biciklo”, Biljana Srbljanović, režija: Anselm Veber, Produkcija: Šaušpilhaus Bohum, Nemačka; Sterijino pozorje 2012, selekcija Nacionalne drame i pozorišta
By: Tamara Baračkov
English version will be available soon.
„Grebanje, ili kako se ubila moja baka“, Tanja Šljivar, režija: Selma Spahić, Bosansko narodno pozorište Zenica/Bitef teatar-Hartefakt (Beograd), premijera: 7. septembar 2012. (Zenica), 11. oktobar 2012. (Beograd)
By: Tamara Baračkov
English version will be available soon.
„Sluga dvaju gospodara“, Karlo Goldoni, režija: Boris Liješević, Grad teatar Budva/Srpsko narodno pozorište Novi Sad/Narodno pozorište „Toša Jovanović“ Zrenjanin, premijera: 27. jul 2012.
By: Tamara Baračkov
English version will be available soon.