Two plays in Montenegrin (co)production, "Radovan III" and "Bald Singer" will be performed at the jubilee, 50th festival "Comedy Days" in Jagodina, which takes place from March 20 to 27, whose competition program was in charge of the selector Aleksandar Milosavljevic.
"Radovan III", a co-production of "Grad Teatra" Budva and National Theater Sombor, will be performed on Sunday, March 24 at 20 p.m. on the stage of the "Svetozar Marković" Cultural Center in Jagodina. The play was based on the text of the same name Dusan Kovačević, by dramatization Vesne Radovanović and directed Vita Taufer, and it premiered during the 37th edition of the festival in Budva, in mid-August last year.
The play was created 50 years after Kovačević wrote the text and 30 years after the premiere of the premiere of his work in the production of Atelje 212, at that time one of the most popular theaters in the former Yugoslavia. The cult "Radovan III" was then staged by the director Ljubomir Muci Draškić, Zoran Radmilović immortalized the main character whose lines are still remembered and repeated today. That play was successfully performed for more than 10 years, so the entire team led by director Taufer had a challenging task ahead of them. The concept of this play is significantly different from the first, and an authentic and recognizable work has been created, the focus of which is, of course, man.
Speaking about the play, Taufer previously emphasized that "good comedies are painful."
"Through the faces of comedy, we see and experience ourselves, our life situations, our fears, our destiny. Comic characters, for example, try to be something they are not. Or they see something in others that these others don't... The opportunity offered by the theater, to laugh at our own big and small stupidities and small and big fools from a comfortable distance, is a great and useful thing for both social and individual health," he said. he added:
"Judging by the subtitle, self-betrayal is the central motif of this painful comedy... Unlike the terrible and funny characters we see on stage, we can keep our self-betrayals to ourselves."
In addition to Vito Taufer and Vesna Radovanović, the play's author team also includes a set designer Lazar Bodroža, costume designer Biljana Grgur, and they composed the original music for the play Robert Pešut Magnificent i Aleksandar Pešut Shatz.
The play features: Ninoslav Đorđević, Biljana Keskenović, Marija Maša Labudović, Danica Grubacki, Srđan Aleksić, Nemanja Bakić, Lazar Nikolic i Pavle Popović.
The play "The Bald Singer" was produced by the Tivat Culture Center, based on the famous text Ežena Ioneska and directed by a great director Jagoš Marković. The repertoire of the festival in Jagodina is on Tuesday, March 26 at 20 p.m., on the stage of the "Svetozar Marković" Cultural Center.
The play features: Olga Odanović, Branko Vidaković, Dubravka Drakić, Momčilo Otašević, Sandra Bugarski, Branimir Popović... She did the costumes Marija Marković Milojević, scenography Tara Lazarevic Kisic, and light design Radomir Stamenković. The music was chosen by director Marković.
The new version of the play that established the Theater of the Absurd in the 50s, Marković received the last award in his rich career, the "Ivana Tomičić" Plaque for his special contribution to the theater and festival "Purgatory". He moved the action of the play from London to Boka Kotorska, to the apartment of a noble Kotor family, thus turning the British austerity of the original actors of the drama into a Mediterranean airiness, but also the swagger characteristic of the inhabitants of the Bay of Kotor, according to the website.
The translation of Ionesco's play into the Boke dialect and its adaptation to local circumstances is signed by him Neven Stanicic. Speaking about the play, Marković pointed out that Ionesco dealt with the loneliness of modern man and the meaninglessness of his existence in his plays of the absurd.
"He believed that the language that people speak is inadequate, automated, and that it 'betrays' the most intimate contents because it consists of trite and impersonal statements. In his world, people talk without saying anything. With them, there is an absence of inner life and the mechanics of everyday life. "Ionesco shows us a man who is immersed in his social environment and who does not stand out from it," said the late director.
In the competition program of the festival, in addition to "Radovan III" and "The Bald Singer", there are five more plays: "The Developmental Path of Bora Schneider", which is based on the text of the Yugoslav Drama Theater Aleksandar Popović directed Egon Savin, "Vanja, Sonja, Maša and others" by Atelier 212, according to the text Christopher Djurang and directed Ksenija Krnajski, author's project Minje Peković "Bravo za Klovna" in the co-production of the National Theatre/Theatre/Nepszinhaz Subotica, the play "Ljubinko and Desanka" based on the text by Aleksandar Popović in the National Theater "Toša Jovanović" was staged by the director Milan Neskovic and an author's project Kokana Mladenović "Once upon a time in Brijuni", co-produced by Bitef Theatre, Beoart, Svilajnac Culture Center and Creative Production Joca Art.
The president of the jury of this year's edition of the festival is Svetislav Bule Goncić, and the other two members will be announced later. The winner of the lifetime achievement award, the "Golden Turkey" statuette, is actress Olga Odanović, who plays in "The Bald Singer".
Bonus video:
