About modern life in Montenegro, but also about what life is turning into in a country where clan wars claim dozens of lives, where families are left without support, without income, without support, in a country where gambling houses are opened on the sites of former libraries and cultural centers, and betting shops right next to schools, is the story of the play "The Upside Down", which will premiere tonight in the great hall of the Montenegrin National Theater (CNP) at 20 p.m.
That's how the director announced it at yesterday's press conference Boris Liješević pointing out that this work raises the question "what happened to us and where did we go astray, when and how".
"My feeling is that the earth was made like that by some parasites who suck the juices until they completely exhaust it. It seems to me that man is in the clutches of drug lords, dealers, mafia, greengrocers, who in this society become authorities, role models and persona grata, and the unit of success is a million", he states.
The action of Liješević's new author's project takes place "in one of our small port towns that the state has decided to valorize, that is, to turn it into a tourist attraction."
"It starts with the state planning to build a large tourist resort on the site of the port. However, the drug cartel, which needs that port (we already know what it is for), opposes it and tries to change the state's decision and prevent the so-called valorization. The mafia achieves this by presenting its interest as public and as a common good...", summed up Liješević.
While all this is happening in our country, says the director, everyone's mouth is full of ecology, natural beauty, tourism and all kinds of potential.
"We all rightfully brag and brag about this face of our country, but at the same time we pretend that the other side is not ours and we try to pretend that the other side does not exist. The other side, on the other hand, is getting stronger and louder," says Liješević.
Devastatingly firmly grounded in the reality we live in, the play "The Upside Down" was created in the ecstasy of a creative, but also engaged, critical and deep thinking process. Liješević came up with his idea in front of the actors who wholeheartedly accepted him, took over and shared the responsibility of creating a dramatic structure from the story together with the author.
"While some characters already existed within this story, the actors would invent others for themselves, profile themselves, imagine situations, dialogues and all the while behave in accordance with what an actor is in the advanced 21st century. This time and contemporary theater ask the actor to be an independent creator who does not wait for instructions and a text to start acting, but takes matters into his own hands and starts the engines and knows that as much as the director and the author team are responsible, so much is the same the responsibility is also in his hands", said Liješević, proud of the entire team of the play, who together with him, walking through the fog, found the shore...
They were in charge of dramaturgy Stella Miskovic i Stefan Boskovic, and in the acting ensemble are: Jadranka Mamić, Danilo Čelebić, Zoran Vujović, Ana Vujošević, Nada Vukčević, Gorana Dragašević, Tihana Ćulafić, Jelena Minič, Jelena Nenezić, Žana Gardašević Bulatović, Kristina Obradović, Branka Otašević, Aleksandar Radulović, Julija Milačić Petrović Njegoš, Radmila Božović, Jovan Dabović , Lazar Đurđević, Jovana Brnović i Anđela Marunović.
The team is completed by costume designers Lejla Hodzic, scenographer Andreja Rondović, composer Nina Perovic, choreographer Tamara Vujošević Mandić, assistant director Nataša Milićević i Mirjana Spajić, scenography assistant Jelena Ivančević, assistant costume designer Gordana Bulatović, as well as executive producer Danilo Milatović.
Artistic director of CNP Vesna Vujošević Labović at yesterday's press conference, she said that "Naličje" is a story about an ordinary man and a family that tries to resist the challenges of a system in which values have been destroyed.
"Liješević succeeds in exposing the essence of the common problem that we carry as a burden at this time. In the pictures, he melts the stories that are causally connected by the montage process, making all the actors very necessary and necessary for the whole. In a project like this, there are no main or secondary roles, no bad achievements, everyone is exactly where they should be, up to the task, playing for the team, building a new common fortress", said Vujošević Labović, thanking the entire team.
Actress Kristina Obradović said that it seems quite possible that this process and this performance will bring about a collective catharsis, that it will make us wonder, but also empower and encourage us to change some things.
She reminded that the process was started with a different composition, and that it also happened that in the meantime they lost a colleague and friend (Stevan Radusinović, prim.nov), and that individuals learned during the process that they had some important and big life challenges ahead of them. battles... All this, says Obradović, led them to ask themselves how it is that in their private lives they get answers to what they are trying to understand on stage, and then she remembered Liješević's previous author's project at CNP.
"We all came back to the need to warm ourselves on the fire of strategic pains that were thrown on the scene day after day. Regardless of everything that happened since the previous trip with Boris when we did the play "Fathers Worked" 11 years ago, we realized that we have all changed in some way, but that some things have remained the same. What remains is the need to find those hidden wounds, very often the deepest, to somehow bring them out of those pockets, out of that silence, out of that lying, to the surface if we don't suffer them together and maybe get one step closer to a cure" , said Obradović.
The prominent Montenegrin actress also questioned yesterday's media interest, given that it was the first premiere in the new season of the national theater. He believes that this too can easily find a place in the play itself, in the context of interest in culture and art...
Aleksandar Radulović said that "Naličje" is a play "about righteous people who are a mistake in the system and have absolutely no chance". Regarding the state of affairs in society and the country, he is not optimistic.
"As for catharsis, it is a part of us and our morals. If an individual's catharsis occurs, because the group will not, everyone will take it home with them, sleep over it and tomorrow return to their rut, from which they cannot get out, no matter how much they want, because the system has long been so poisoned that it does not have that probiotic. who can clean those intestines... It will stay that way", believes Radulović.
He said that he perceives the theater as an island surrounded by sharks, on which whenever it's bad - it's good.
"I think we will show that we have strength as an ensemble, but also as the CNP as a whole in all sectors, because in these times of despondency it is important that the majority of people have kept the will to work. We are 19 actors, 16 from the ensemble, along with three young people who have shown that the theater can count on them," he said.
Jovan Dabović said that everyone should watch the play, especially politicians, because it is important for them, so they don't look back on the mark they leave...
When asked by "Vijesti" whether the CNP management sent an invitation to the representatives of citizens from the political scene, the artistic director said that it was done according to a clearly established protocol related to the prime minister.
"We try to always include as many things as possible in that business segment, through what are our obligations, but also the duty to be open to the audience that wants to see the show. I think the best invitation is what each of us had to say, and since we invited various people, I believe they will come," said Vujošević Labović.
Like an exciting movie, poignant and humorous
Anđela Marunović said yesterday that the process of working on "Naličje" was precious for her, deeply creative, and that it significantly influenced her maturation as an actress, for which she is grateful.
"The Stella I play is completely different from me. Creating that role, together with Boris, from thorough analysis, preparation, looking for situations and problems that this young person falls into, we realize that these things are all around us... From the first rehearsal until today, a certain kind of adrenaline never leaves me, because of the topic that concerns me, because those claws that Boris talked about are actually in all spheres of society," said Marunović.
Lazar Đurđević pointed out that we are getting a performance that, both with the story and the situations interpreted in it, reminds of a very good movie, which is equally poignant, humorous and exciting. He is proud to be a part of such a project, which is unique in his career so far.
Composer Nina Perović stated that the work and collaboration with Liješević is unique, and that he pushes boundaries.
"The idea that Boris came up with, which is the idea of freedom of creation given to us by this concept, was for each of us in the team something extremely beautiful, but also demanding, because it requires everyone to take responsibility to the greatest extent possible... I entered a world that was unknown to me until now, which is electronic music, but also things that certain scenes required. Letting things happen and create by themselves is the beauty of the creative act and process, but also something that we should all apply in our own lives to make it more beautiful," said the composer.
Tihana Ćulafić pointed out that the process for them, no matter how demanding, difficult and challenging, carries a noble beauty.
his feeling is that the earth was made like this by some parasites who suck the juices until they completely exhaust it. It seems to me that man is in the clutches of drug lords, dealers, mafia, greengrocers, who in this society become authorities, role models and persona grata, and the unit of success is a million," said director Boris Liješević.
Bonus video:
