55th STERIJINO POZORJE FESTIVAL 2010

Director Paolo MAGELLI

Dramaturge Željka UDOVIČIĆ-PLEŠTINA

Set Designer Hans Georg SCHAFER

Costume Designer Leo KULAŠ

Composer Arturo ANNECCHINO

Assistant Director Ivan MARUŠIĆ Klif

Light Design Zdravko STOLNIK

Assistant Costume Designer
Zjena GLAMOČANIN

Premiere: October 1st 2009

CAST
Milica	Dijana VIDUŠIN
Mila	Perica MARTINOVIĆ
Milena	Ksenija PAJIĆ
Dragan	Ranko ZIDARIĆ
Drago	Milan PLEŠTINA
Zoran (sometimes Marko)	Rakan RUSHAIDAT
Marko (just Marko)	Franjo DIJAK
Dog Lady	Barbara NOLA
Doctor	Sven MEDVEŠEK
Bum	Ozren GRABARIĆ
Woman in the World of the Dead	Ivana ROŠČIĆ
Dogs	Azra, Luna, Boss (on the video) i Bunda (on the video)

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

CITY DRAMA THEATRE 'GAVELLA' - ZAGREB (Croatia)

In the year 1953 a group of young actors and directors, mostly ‘rebels’ from the Croatian National Theatre, headed by Dr Branko Gavella, took over the building of the Little Theatre and founded the Zagreb Drama Theatre. The first play was performed in Subotica, and the theatre opened its doors to the audience in 1954 (Golgotha by M. Krleža, directed by B. Gavella). The theatre grew into one of the most distinguished and enduring theatre houses in Zagreb and Croatia. In 1970, its name was changed into Drama Theatre Gavella, to which “city” was also later added. In the first season, the national and foreign dramatists were performed (Krleža, Lorca, Steinbeck, Arthur Miller, Ionesco and Beckett, Marijan Matković, Pero Budak, Slavko Kolar...) Directors: Gavella, Kosta Spaić, Mladen Škiljan, Dino Radojević, Georgij Paro, Tomislav Durbešić. In 1959, Gavella left the ZDT, and a little later another director-founder left, Mladen Škiljan. In the 1960s, Vanča Kljaković, Joško Juvančić and Tomislav Radić worked as directors. A series of successful performances followed (Radojević directs Krleža’s Kraljevo, performed 173 times). Pirandello, Edward Bond, Phaido, Spaić directs Držić’s Skup (performed over a hundred times). In the 1970s, Želimir Mesarić and Ivica Kunčević, Vlado Habunek, Bogdan Jerković, Marin Carić are directors. Marinković’s Glorija, Vojnović’s Maškarate ispod kuplja and Krleža’s German Shepherd are on the repertoire. Shakespeeare, Schiller, Chekhov, Molier, Calderon, Strindberg, Brecht and Von Horvath, but also the works of Budak, Bakarić, Jelačić Bužimski, Prica, Šnajder, Šorak, Senečić and Brešan are performed. Between 1980 and 1990 some great performances are created: Šovagović’s The Hawk Didn’t Like Him, directed by Violić, from 1982 to 1989 performed over 220 times, Crazy Days by Magelli from 1987 (after Beaumarche and Von Horvath). Radojević, Kunčević, Spaić and Veček direct Shakespeare. “The welcome guest” in those days is Krleža as well. Begović and Matković, Strindberg and Ibsen, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov, Gorky and Gogol are set. Violić and Međimorec set Havel, and Mesarić Shaffer’s Amadeus. In the 80s, as never before, Gavella does not forget contemporary national playwrights, so Prica, Brešan, Šnajder are peformed again, but there are also Ivšić, Bakmaz, Gavran and Lada Kaštelan. Since the 1990s, the ensemble has about 40 actors, including a significant part of the younger generation, which greatly form the repertoire. The plays that have been regular on the repertoire are still performed, and between 1990 and 2000 also Dolenčić, Mužić, Nina Kleflin, Snježana Banović and Saša Broz, actors Rade Šerbedžija and Mustafa Nadarević, foreigners Warlikowski, Farr, Bagossy and Lorenci, for the first time Brezovec, Jelčić, Baletić and Stojsavljević, as well as the young Hana Veček, Aida Bukvić and Nora Krstulović, also Nataša Lušetić and Emil Matešić. Beside national and foreign “classics”, Croatian writers are not forgotten either: Bakmaz, Brešan, Paljetak, Vujčić, Matišić, Stojsavljević, Lada Kaštelan and Ivan Vidić.

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

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“Barbello is where we come from and where many would like to return and hide, and each one of us should choose what that is,” is written next to the latest play by the most frequently staged Serbian playwright in Europe. "Barbello – that is 'Barbello' – is a notion used the history of Christianity to signify the first emanation of God... His primeval source, primordial cause, primordial principle, a metaphysical space where everything was descended from, even we." Beyond such a 'metaphysical explanation' – or perhaps below it – images are shown that tenderly and humorously, yet ironically and polemically, talk about love and death, distance and closeness, appearing significantly less political than we would expect from a new play by Biljana Srbljanović. This 'neglect for politics' which is nevertheless present, for politics is always present, has taken her manuscript towards areas of emotional bareness, 'where life is a nightmare'. In such a life both humans and dogs are mere wanderers, beings with no stronghold and background sentenced to mutual exhaustion, but also solidarity that is only sometimes capable of turning into true understanding.
Barbello and its anti-heroes belong to a Magellian world, there's no doubt about it, a world where struggle is the only way to reach ourselves and the others like 'private persons', but also like theatre artists. That is why this play in its direction seems like a wonderful opportunity for the creation of theatre which won’t spare itself, but will know how to tell the audience a story of themselves – and ourselves. The prestigious European New Theatrical Reality Award, given to the writer, shows that Barbello and what it communicates is applicable everywhere, because children and dogs are beings that need care, and increasingly the stage, so they could speak from it with their seemingly fragile, yet powerful voices.
From the programme of the play

Children: In Barbello, children are mere little people. Not a bit more naive than we are, nor gentler, but more honest. They analyse our lives and come up with conclusions, and the things we offer them for analysis too often deprives of the beauty. Still, those beings can maybe gather strength not to repeat our mistakes, to rebel and confront. “Childhood is a symbol of innocence: it the state that precedes sin, it is therefore, the edenic state. In different traditions it symbolises a return to the embryonic stage, to which childhood remains close. Childhood is the symbol of natural simplicity and spontaneity... In the Christian tradition, angels are usually shown as children, because they are a sign of innocence and purity (...) The image of a child can point to the victory over complexity and misery, and conquering of the inner peace and self assurance.” / Chevalier and A. Gheerbrant, Dictionary of Symbols

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

Magelli’s stage reading of the play by Biljana Srbljanović is marked by extraordinary lyricism, elegance, purity of directorial procedure, reduction of signs and a focus on the actors’ expressive play, atomised, yet penetrating, freed from superfluous gestures. With simple changes in lighting, using video beam that effectively serve the expression of the characters’ subconscious, minimalist, functional, emotional music, as well as a very suggestive actors’ play, an authenticity of the stage reading has been achieved. The play has undergone significant dramaturgical interventions compared to the text and the first performance by Dejan Mijač, which resulted in greater coherence and conciseness of the plot. Magelli has clearly, articulately and poetically potently shown the philosophic/anthropologic, as well as the socio-political issues treated by Srbljanović in the play.

Ana TASIĆ

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PAOLO MAGELLI
Born in Prato, the very center of Toscana, at the end of the 1940s. His artistic development was influenced by Giorgio Strehler, to whom he served as assistant. In the early 1970s, together with Roberto Benigni, Pamela Villoresi, Severio Marconi, Francesco Nutti and Marcello Bartolli, he founded Teatro Studio del Teatro Metastasio. He studied directing and Slavic Studies, and after receiving a scholarship he went to Romania where he directed two plays with which he was invited to the Paris Festival Théâtre des Nations by Jean-Louis Barrault.
In Croatia, Magelli first appeared in 1974 with Mandragora by the Belgrade National Theatre at the Dubrovnik Summer Plays. In 1985 he moved to Zagreb, and in 1987 he directed Euripides’ Phoenician Women, the play which is now considered a classic. This was followed by Crazy Days, Nation, Great Magic, Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, Platonov, Electra, Crime at the Goat Island, A Month in the Countryside. Kraljevo... He is the recipient of the “Vjesnik” prize for theatre arts “Dubravko Dujšin” in 2007 for Petty-Bourgeois Wedding. He has been directing in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Venezuela, Mexico, Switzerland, Colombia, Belgium, Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro and Israel.
Directions in Serbia (selection): YDT – Goldoni, The Holiday Trilogy, Shakespeare, King Lear, Von Horvat, Don Juan Comes Back from the War, Italian Night, Ibsen, Peer Gynt, Gorky, At the Bottom; Atelier 212 – Von Horvat, Tales from the Viennese Forest, At the Good Looks, Pirandello, Giants from the Mountain, Nenad Prokić, Metastabilni graal; NT Beograd – Shakespeare, As You Like It, Donizetti, Daughter of the Regiment (opera); Belgrade Drama Theatre – Schaffer, Amadeus, Todor Manojlović, Centrifugal Player, Božidar Zečević, Ale House; Theatre "Boško Buha" – Collodi, Pinocchio; SCC Belgrade – Brecht, Good Soul from Szechuan.
At Pozorje 1988, in the production of Macedonian National Theatre, he appeared as director of The Black Hole by Goran Stefanovski.

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BILjANA SRBLjANOVIĆ
Born in 1970 in Belgrade. Received a B.A. in dramaturgy at the Faculty of Performance Arts in Belgrade (1995). She wrote nine theatre pieces: The Belgrade Trilogy (1997), Family Stories (1998, Sterija Prize for best text); Fall (2000); Supermarket (2001; Sterija Prize for best text 2003), Alisa (2002); Animal Kingdom (2003); America, Part 2 (2003; Sterija Prize for text 2004); Locust (2005; Sterija Prize for text 2006), as well as short plays Manifesto (2001), and Travels (2008).
Plays written by Biljana Srbljanović have been performed in more than 150 theatres in the world and translated to more than twenty languages. She wrote for the following publications: Der Spiegel. Le Monde, La Republicca, The New York Times, The Guardian..., She is a regular contributor to the Belgrade site Peščanik. She is the recipient of the prize ‘Slobodan Selenić', 'Ernst Toller' (for the engagement ‘between politics and art'), 'Joakim Vujić’ for the overall contribution to theatre... The prize of the city of Belgrade “Conquering Freedom” for civil engagement, and she is the recipient of the most important theatre prize ‘Premio Europa’ – Award for new theatric reality. She twice won the title ‘The best foreign writer’ of the magazine Theater Heute.
Biljana Srbljanović teaches at the Faculty of Performance Arts in Belgrade and the school ‘Paolo Grassi’ in Milan. She is the activist for human rights and human treatment of animals. She lives in Belgrade and Paris, for the last few years in Azerbaijan as well. She has a dog.

A U T H O R ...

BARBELLO

Barbello is a notion which in the history of Christianity refers to the first emanation of God, his proto-origin, the First Cause, the first principle, some metaphysical space which is the source of everything, even us. In a strictly religious sense, Barbello means god in Hebrew, in old Greek it means ‘forethought’, while its most important translation is - the womb of the world. In medieval paintings the birth of Jesus is often depicted as happening in some kind of a womb-shaped cave, as if the entire world starts from there. For me Barbello is a mother’s womb, a safe, warm place, outside of time and before the beginning of everything, for instance the womb of Mother of God, but every other mother as well.
Those who want to find out more can do so in Gnostic gospels, but its religious dimension is by no means essential, quite the contrary. Barbello is where we come from and the place many would like to return to and hide in, and everyone should decide what it is.

Biljana SRBLjANOVIĆ

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

Sprained Reality & Black Humour
(...) Black humorous image of the world is the sign of her dramatic language. Her authorial writing is based on the principle of sprained characters from reality, disjointed dramatic situations and occasional sharp stabs of a satirical sting into the reality surrounding us. Thus in Barbello she skillfully mixes the world of the living and the dead, humans and dogs, reality and illusions. And truly she knows how to draw the viewer into a misconception, because he/she is never completely sure in the reliability and finding one’s way in her agile dramatic meanderings, breaks and muddlings. Regardless, she is an interesting dramatist who knows how to make the audience laugh with her black humour and how to entertain them. Yet, behind that lightness there is a sharp disagreement of the author with the social surrounding, the deep immorality of man and the world, mainly the disintegration of family, but also the political reality (...) Actors like to work with Magelli, because he has a rich experience, and he returns their love, even when he “forces them” in one play to kneel the whole time. Ksenija Pajić embodied a character full of powerful feelings, spiritual naivete and a great need to survive in improbable circumstances. Certainly the central place in the play and the most impressive acting achievement. Rakan Rushaidat in the role of the boy extraordinarily balances between imitating a child and an adult, offering a comic and a distressing character at the same time. Other members of the performing ensemble tried really hard to realise the director’s ideas, not always using the best stage speech, but they are certainly engaging and impressive (...)
Igor MRDULJAŠ, Hrvatsko slovo, October 9 2009

All our losses transformed into a theatre success
(...) The poetics of Biljana Srbljanović is already well known far beyond the Balkan territories. Difficult problems of human relationships, contaminated by politics and social calamities she watches around her, Biljana Srbljanović as a rule places in the area of the family, that “bad example” of the society crumbling before our eyes. Her texts are immersed into real stories, practically from the neighbourhood, they are full of some painful fantasy turned upside down, where social depression and political madness crouch in a dark corner of family intimacy. Everything is connected with everything else on some track as narrow as a blade, yet everything is broken up and hopelessly distant, like a flower vase that has broken into a hundred pieces.
Together with other young writers from this and the other side of the Drina, Biljana Srbljanović belongs to the post-pessimist generation of the ex-Yugoslav territory, which has guiltlessly seen its share of horror. That is why her pieces are so intellectually subtle, so dark and witty, and so devastatingly painful.
In Magelli’s direction of the play Barbello, all this psychological, social and political nightmares, so recognisable in this area, have rushed out to the surface and, like crying demons, have sat on our back. Socially, Barbello is a play about the sum of all our losses; psychologically, it could be named an overall expression of how we feel today; and visually, it is a play of dark appeal punching the audience in all the vital organs of esthetic and moral sensitivity (...) “Everyone would like to be loved, and no one is capable of loving,” as Biljana Srbljanović would say. In this play, Magelli has rightfully used – in highlighting the social diseases of moral decay – all the well known repertoire of stage exaggeration, from the physically stripped protagonists on the stage and hyper-realistic acting to a morbid satisfaction, in this case of an open tomb dominating the stage from the start to the end. Magelli tried hard to show the depth of the abyss, so Barbello, with heroes around us, looks also like a biblical meeting place, where the fallen heroes, live and dead, confronted with the consequences of their unfortunate decisions, gather. The piece Barbello carries the subtitle “On Dogs and Children,” so this title suggests the interwoven character of the story: both dogs and children in this play horribly suffer from the world of the adults that is breaking apart, but they are equally that much more valuable.
The crucial role in the play certainly belongs to the actors, led by Ksenija Pajić, Franjo Dijak, Barbala Nolo, Milan Pleštin, Rakan Rushaidat and Perica Martinović, who, with an exaggerated yet accurate play fulfilled Magelli’s concept about Barbello as a frighteningly magnificent sight of grotesque faces, graveyard flowers and menacing sounds, who round up that sad cabaret of human misery.
In this play, Magelli has also reckoned with Croatian demons of petty-bourgeois hypocrisy, so the scenes where the minister is running away with a suitcase full of money, the funeral with Croation flags and the mentioning of executions and “the bullet in the back of the head” seemed shocking for the audience at the premiere, which in those scenes recognized the uncomfortable truths from the past wars not yet fully confronted. For this sort of reckoning, Magelli had a great collaborator in Biljana Srbljanović, who, from the perspective of Belgrade and Serbia writes about the same thing in Barbello. Although she says that she merely “writes what hurts her,” she is a deeply engaged writer who, through her intimate depression, accurately deactivates the cadaverous schizophrenia of the (Serbian) society (...)
What Biljana Srbljanović has introduced into the contemporary ex-Yugoslav and European dramatic writing is certainly – in the footsteps of the absurd – that interpretation of life as an accidental incident in a schizophrenic reality around us. In order to be able to deal with that life, Biljana Srbljanović reaches for the twisted symbols, allegories and fantasies that make her plays a poetic requiem of that same reality (...)
Bojan MUNJIN, Novosti, October 9 2009