Sreten Asanović, Nomina, Plima, Ulcinj, 2011
By: Ivana Ančić
English version will be available soon.
The Case of the &TD, directed by: Natalija Manojlović, produced by: The &TD Theatre
By: Ivana Anić
˝What are you doing? How long does it last? You are not doing anything. You are empty, you are boring. Your axis bores me’’, says Ana Karić to a dancer Ivana Pavlović, while she performs her ‘’axis study’’ at the very beginning of the play ‘’The Case of the &TD.’’ The new piece by dancer, choreographer and director Natalija Manojlović, was staged at the theatre in point – The &TD Theatre. The words at the beginning speak to the contemporary dance, to the avantgarde theatre, to the &TD Theatre and to the independent scene and to the culture in general, since none of the other characters are not spared of criticism or auto-irony. Hence, Ana Karić, as the Narcissistic Diva that spends most of her past time signing her own photographs and living on her old glory, is just another ‘’case’’ in a cultural-health institution – the &TD Theatre. ‘’And-the-what-know Theatre’’, as it says in the introduction of the play, The mental institution, to be politically incorrect.
The art of theatre, mostly due to its social character, has the greatest potential of transformation of an individual. The policy enables it, as long as it stays within the limits of its own architectural body, the same way a mental hospital is a place where patients can (secretly) practice their own, in this case, ‘’creative behaviour’’ as long as they are under observation. Of course, they are not taken seriously, as is mostly the case with artists whose position is similar to that of a holy fool. She was most clearly articulated by the Renaissance, and rediscovered by Postmodernism, and was recognised throughout the history, by philosophy, religion and in the secular lives of figures and characters of Socrates, Christ and of the Court’s fool. She is characterised by her easy existence, disrespect for social conventions, belief in herself and by her (un)recognised wisdom that comes from the inside, unburdened by place, time or historical moment.
Such distance opens a path for scepticism, paradox, irony, multiple views and playing with binary separations of art-life, comic-tragic, personal-public and real-illusion as a path to realisation. Some of these have been used by the author at the very announcement of the play which tackles the positions of four psychiatric cases – the artists Ana Karić, Ivana Pavlović and Dean Krivačić and the producer Dario Varga – that are being observed by the doctor Nataša Dangubić, wearing leopard pattern pumps. It is stated in the introduction that after the WHO has published the criteria for diagnosing a new disorder – the Artistic Behaviour Disorder (ABD) – a possibility for saving the State and taxpayers’ money has been found by merging of the Ministry of Culture with the Ministry of Health, which resulted in isolation of the users of the funds in the Culture from the rest of the society and by observing them in specialised institutions.
A few details create confusing connections of fiction and reality: the characters are presented only by initials (the case of A.K., the case of D.V…and finally the case in the title), but those are all actors’ own initials. Furthermore, when the actress Ana Karić criticises the contemporary dancer Ivana Pavlović, the criticism is directed also to the author, since she herself is a member of the Croatian dance scene and with that the author starts a polemic with herself. Criticism of contemporary dance from an actress is no different from that of any layman, which bring us to a very obvious problem of solidarity between the arts. The character of a producer in a suit, whose hunched shoulders and stuck up performance, but also with a child’s enthusiasm, Dario Varga expresses with a precision of a liable and jumpy person that has spend most of his working life trying to balance paperwork, artists and bureaucracy, stays inside and outside narration on Art at the same time. The play ends with him leaving the theatre grounds and standing on the outside of a window, that was covered until that moment, and marking the place with red and white safety tape. Is he protecting the outside world from the theatre and its enthusiasm, or is he securing theatre’s freedom? Or is he, simply, sentencing the theatre?
The strongest side of ‘’the parallel universe’’ in The Case of the &TD is pure irony, the irony that is manifested in ‘’the criticism’’ of performance art – but in Art in general – in front of an audience that came on its own free will to see the play. In front of a known without which there is no equation. Hence, the audience has to be as crazy to participate in creation of art as the artist himself. This is the foundation around which the ‘’pros’’ of this play are created. For example, when the offended Ana Karić protests ‘’I do not strip naked! Do you have any idea who I am?! They send an airplane just to take a photo of me on a camel! The critics named me the thinking noun!!!’’ and the brainstorm by Dean Krivačić for a play in which the character of the critic should be set down under a huge cross and let ashes fall on him, are some of the wittiest lines in Croatian theatre in the past few years.
The creative process is shown as chaotic, pretentious, hyperactive, hermetic, asocial, vain and charming, but at the end sensible. In such a way, Manojlović strips the theatre in front of the audience, verbalising and creating a boomerang effect of most uncertainties and questions of an average theatre visitor. The director is not without sin and her lunatics are sometimes too playful, like innocent children unaware of the terrifying, anti-utopian narration in which they live in, a narration on society that ‘’institutionalises artists as a non-profit population with characteristics of a sect’’, and treats them like a State that marks its critics as terrorists and a justifiable act is only the one with profit. In this sense, it is the connection with the condition of the human freedoms, as well as with commercialisation of education very relevant in the world today, but due to the benign tone of the play, the viewer often forgets the mentioned analogy. The third ‘’why’’ is the small window in a corner of the Semi-circle hall of the &TD Theatre, that looks like a confession room and from which a cold ‘’Big Brother’’ voice of Nataša Dangubić comes from. Because art is like Big Brother whose function, as well as that of philosophy, is the supervision of reality. Poking. Asking too many questions. A job that never pays off, and a risk to be labelled as ‘’a lunatic’’, and lunatics are mostly free to run around anyway, in every season.
What we are left with, at the end of The Case of the &TD, is to wish there to be more of us ‘’mentally deficient’’ to laugh together, since in the playground of discrepancy between the text and the context, the actors and the audience enjoyed themselves like small children and the theatre got its ‘’that’s why’’ to the eternal ‘’why’’ of all theatre sceptics.
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.