54th STERIJINO POZORJE FESTIVAL 2009

Adapted and directed by ANĐELKA NIKOLIĆ

Consultant BOŠKO MILIN

Dramaturgy MILOŠ LATINOVIĆ

Costume Design DEJAN DOŠLjAK

Space JOVANA OBRADOVIĆ

Stage Speech DEJAN SREDOJEVIĆ

Make up DRAGAN JEREMIĆ

Premiere: October 4th 2008

CAST
Saturnius, Roman. The eldest son of the late Emperor of Rome, later incapable husband and father of the nation	BRANISLAV KNEŽEVIĆ
Bassianus, Roman. The younger son of the late Emperor. A promising kid, later covered with lime and thrown into a hole	NIKOLA JOKSIMOVIĆ
Titus Andronicus, Roman. Hero under post-traumatic stress. Careless father	DRAGAN OSTOJIĆ
Marcus Andronicus, Roman. Big brother	MARKO GVERO
Mutius, Roman. Obedient warrior and inobedient son, later slaughtered in public	JORDAN BURSAĆ
Young Lucius, Young Roman. Titus' youngest son. Does not resemble anyone. When he grows up, he begins to resemble	FILIP JUNGIĆ
Alarbus, Foreigner. Tamora's favorite son, slaughtered in public	ŽELjKO TOMIN
Chiron, Foreigner. Tamora's second son. Later a Roman-style lasagna	MILjAN DAVIDOVIĆ
Aaron, Foreigner, Black Man and Fool. Accordingly, guilty of every wrongdoing	ĐORĐE BRANKOVIĆ
Tamora, Woman and Roman. Mother of a bastard and the nation, indefinitely	MARIJA OPSENICA
Lavinia, Woman and Roman. Later a disgrace on two legs, without arms and tongue	MINA STOJKOVIĆ
Man in Uniform, Soldier, butler etc. In every role, keeps quiet and does his job	SLAVOLjUB MATIĆ
Woman in Uniforom, Soldier, nurse, janitor etc. In every role, keeps quiet and does her job	GORDANA ROŠČIĆ

T H E A T R E......

NATIONAL THEATRE - KIKINDA

The roots of theatre life in Kikinda are deep. The first theatre play was performed in 1796 in German, and in May 1834 in Serbian. It was a piece by Jovan Sterija Popović, “Svetislav and Mileva,” performed in the bar “At the Golden Plow.”
National Theatre in Kikinda was founded more than half a century ago, on December 2, 1950, under the name of City Amateur Theatre, and in 1993 became a professional theatre.

T H E A T R E......

HOP.LA! - BELGRADE

Art group Hop.la! was founded in 2005 in Belgrade. It owes its cheerful name to the dark play Hop-la, we are living! by Ernst Toller. The main areas of activity of Hop.la! represent authorial art productions (“Saga”, “One’s Own Wife”, “About Violence”), programmes of participational art (“I and You”, “Pride and Prejudice”) and research in the area of esthetics and psychology of art (“Process K”, “Modes of esthetic treatment of theatre play”). They realise their programmes and production through collaboration with institutions of culture and non-government organizations at home and abroad (CZKD, Centre for Culture Stari Grad, Bitef Polifonija, Gallery Progres, Institute for Psychodrama, Theatre Glej, National Theatre Kikinda ...) The activities of Hop.la! were so far supported by the City of Belgrade Culture Secretariat, Pro Helvetia and City of Belgrade Sport and Youth Secretariat.
Since 2007 Hop.la! has been an active member and collaborator of the European Off-Theater Network.

P E R F O R M A N C E......

ABOUT VIOLENCE

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"About violence" is a theatre performance inspired by the play “Titus Andronicus” by William Shakespeare. It explores the phenomenon of violence in its various aspects and forms, especially those that are hidden and less visible. Researching this problem in the context of the modern world, we are mostly interested in the purpose of violence, and the ways it becomes a tool for mass manipulation, camouflage of the holes in the system and general power control. The ways of provoking, coordinating and using the violence are numerous and sometimes very subtle. This well established practice operates with psychology of the modern man: aggression and need to revenge, but also sensibility and identification with victims, and, above all, wide-spread curiosity about spectacular crimes. On the other hand, it counts on his social and political conditions: divisions
based on criteria of nationality, race, sex, and social status, which keep our society in the position of constant fragile peace between citizens with full rights and so-called “outsiders”. Shakespeare’s original play, which is well known by very obvious brutality, is a perfect starting point for this theatrical expedition “under the surface of violence”.

S E L E C T O R ' S...R E P O R T......

Esseistically modified with the title, but exemplarily dramatic, Titus Andronicus by Kikinda Theatre seems powerful, pure, clear, topical, not losing anything from its Shakespearean internal potential/controversies and managing to overcome them, take them apart, balance them without reconciliation, and topically sharpen them by means of minimalist focusing on the significant. The young and uncompromising director with a big D in mind reduced it to a seeming theatrical poverty, tucked the cruelly stripped stage into a horror vacuum, into a web of actions and significations where the gestures of total-design, embryonic/expressive acting, musical voices calibrated to mimicry and everything from Titus Andronicus that has to be uttered are brilliantly bewitched into a unique silhouette of the very same mechanism of cruelty playing with us to this date, no matter how much it has technologically and otherwise developed throughout the centuries. Sharp, youthfully courageous and political, with an evidently dedicated collective effort of the entire ensemble to which this is the most impressive creative accomplishment in the current decade.

Igor BURIĆ & Vladimir KOPICL

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Anđelka Nikolić, born in 1977, graduated Department for Theatre and Radio Directing at the Faculty of Performance Arts, in the class of Professor Ljubomir Draškić and Slavenko Saletović, and Department of French Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade.
Plays directed: You haven't forgotten, you just don't remember anymore by Simona Semenič (Gledališče Glej, Ljubljana), Rules of Behaviour in Modern Society by Jean-Luc Lagars (YDT, Belgrad)e, His Own Wife by Doug Wright (Hop.la!), The Deceived after J. St. Popović (NT "Sterija" Vršac, Romanian-language stage), German Shepherd by M. Krleža (NT Kikinda), Wedding by Gogol (NT Kikinda), Dusk by Ivo Vojnović (Bitef teatar, Beograd).
She directed several radio-dramas for Radio Belgrade, based on the texts by Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Simić, Ivo Vojnović and Danilo Kiš.
She participated in festivals: Vršac Theatre Autumn, Comedy Days in Jagodina, Bitef Showcase, Borštnikovo srečanje in Maribor (accompanying programme), Week of Slovenian Drama in Kranj, Festival of Professional Theatres of Vojvodina. For the play German Shepherd she was awarded at the Vršac Theatre Autumn in 2006 for best director and best play in general.
She translates from French and English. She is a member and one of the founders of the art group Hop.la!

D I R E C T O R ...

Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus is a classic example of brutality on stage. There is so much violence in this piece, at certain moments it threatens to become an ode to the passion of killing and torture flooding the stage and the orchestra. As if violence is something surpassing our ability to grasp, some kind of inherent human tendency using every moment of carelessness to radically shake the order of the entire universe and turn it into a beastly lair. It is so... or does it only seem so?
The play About Violence rejects the thesis about inherent aggression and/or demonic origin of evil. On the contrary, it examines social mechanisms and the inherited, traditional paradigms of behaviour allowing, or even causing, violence, subsequently feeding itself.
Beside Titus Andronicus, the dramatic model is inspired by other tragedies and comedies by Shakespeare (Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, As You Like It) studies by Hans Meier (Outsiders), Hanna Arendt (About Violence) and Lash Swensson (The Philosophy of Evil), the poetry and music of Nick Cave, black chronicles of daily press and series about forensics.

Anđelka NIKOLIČ

R E V I E W S......

The Enchanted Cycle of Evil
(...) Almost entirely without a set, director Anđelka Nikolić tells an atomised story about the meritorious Roman army commander Titus Andronicus (Dragan Ostojić) who, after a war with the Goths, hands over the power to the imperial family - to Saturninus (Branislav Knežević). Before the end almost all the characters (members of both families) in an enchanted cycle of revenge, envy, ambition and imprudence - favourite Shakespearean motifs in great historical tragedies - end up slaughtered, burned, slain... “The reason” for the murdering mania is the meeting of the civilised (Rome) and the barbarian (Goths), although both are, despite their pedigree, very talented for murderous intrigues, all connected to the care of ancestors, gods and the people, which is not supported by a single, concrete act as real. The people - audience, on the other hand, as the only real set of the monstrous ruler’s ceremony, respecting good theatre customs of silence and non-action, are the real illustration of the directorial intention to show them as a passive and indifferent category. (...) By using the groundlessness and dysfunctional deformity of a reversed effect of the presented in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, the inability to rationalise those things, Anđelka Nikolić sees a possibility to provoke with the play a philosophical discourse (questioning the essentials) about the evil in humans, or at best around them. The director abundantly uses Shakespeare’s text(s) to show, within the frame of violent powerful-strong-authoritative (males), the entire specter of gender, racial and injustice to the youngest, to whom beside the difference nothing is left but suffering/identification and death. Unfortunate Titus’ daughter, Lavinia (Mina Stojković) and the Gothic, and then Roman Empress Tamora (Marija Opsenica), i.e. their brothers and sons, are thus an object of great attention in the play About Violence by the National Thetre in Kikinda.
Igor BURIĆ, Dnevnik, October 8 2008