End of the play. Thunderous applause and silence that hurts, warns, awakens. And that applause and silence can work together was shown by the play "World of Possibilities", which was performed on the third competition night of the International Actor's Festival in Nikšić.
Wait; they are not people with developmental disabilities, they are actors. Disbelief, even louder applause, even bigger bow. Even the director of the Novi Sad Day Center said that she was deceived.
Novi Sad - pain, sadness, 14 interrupted lives, the request of the actors for a minute of silence and an address that they came only out of respect for the Festival, the audience and the topic they are dealing with, which is not sufficiently lit and transparent.
So much packed into just one evening - enough for a lifetime, not one night. Life - it would be so poor if it weren't for them, a person with developmental disabilities, it would be colorless if it weren't for their uniqueness, it would be better if we were better. And the actors of the play "World of Possibilities", created as a joint project of the Serbian National Theater from Novi Sad, the East West Center from Sarajevo, the Dance Center "Tala" from Zagreb and the City Theater from Budva, bring us on stage authentic stories of people with developmental disabilities, "a world of cruel impotence on the one hand and superhuman heroism, exceptional dedication and love on the other", as she wrote Aleksandra Glowacki, theater critic. They also bring the story of brave individuals from the Day Center who fight to make this world wide and comfortable enough for everyone.
Around us is a universe of lines and dots, in the soul of sadness, in the heart of anxiety, and on stage a great cast telling us that we can be better people, only if we want to, and that the world of people with developmental disabilities can and must be our world.
"For days we visited day care centers for people with developmental disabilities in Budva, Sarajevo and Novi Sad, where we socialized with users and educators and became very good friends. Each of us has or knows a person with developmental disabilities, so the actors had a great responsibility, because these are things that are on the verge of not going into some persiflage. We tried to faithfully portray people with autism and developmental disabilities. The process for performing the piece was not difficult for us, because we were already so involved in their lives. At the premiere of the play in Novi Sad, there were many users of the Day Center, who were incalculably happy to be with us that evening. The director of the play, Haris Pašović, he received a message from the director of the Novi Sad Day Center in which she states that we deceived her, because she thought that we were their users and people with autism and developmental disabilities, which was the greatest praise for us actors," he said. Milan Kovacevic.
But they did not deceive us with their empathy and love, great acting skills, kindness, and humanity.
Radio-television of Vojvodina declared the play the best overall at the 73rd Vojvodina Professional Theater Festival held in Subotica, while according to the jury's decision, the award for the best male role went to Aljoša Đidić, and the award for the best male episodic role went to Milan Kovačević.
The actors and author's team during the preparation for the play, and the process lasted more than a year, had mentors - psychologists, special education teachers, pedagogues, educators, but also the users themselves. Aljoša Đidić had a special consultant for the role of Boris - Borko from the "Milan Petrović" school, one of the largest centers for people with developmental disabilities in the region.
"It is about a man who is 40 years old and who cannot move his legs and arms, cannot speak and is not verbal. Until he was 33, everyone thought that he was also mentally impaired, but then Slađana came, in our play it is Irena, who realized through working with him that Borko is extremely mentally preserved and that he is actually perhaps more intelligent than most of us. Then the device 'Tobi' was acquired, which allows him to communicate with all of us through eye movements, even to write and play an instrument. When the premiere was held, Borko was with his dad and he literally played every scene with us, he could be heard from the audience, as if we played every scene together. It was an incredible feeling. This is truly a special acting and human experience," Điđić pointed out.
The actors tried their best, Gordana Đurđević Dimić, Lidija Stevanović, Sanja Ristic Krajnov, Jelena Antonijević, Mina Pavlica, Marija Feldeši, Milan Kovačević, Marko Savković, Vukašin Ranđelović, Aljoša Đidić, Aleksandar Sarapa i Rade Perović, to transfer that experience and richness to the audience.
"All the time we were working, we were balancing on the edge of the precipice, because we had to take care not to cross the thin line that guided us by playing the characters of these people. The director is also very deserving, because he guided us with a firm hand to go through that path, each of us individually and together, as a team, along that delicate line that we all drew together," said actress Jelena Antonijević, after the performance.
The conversation with the actors was conducted by the playwright and director Radisav Jevrić who pointed out that he is sure that the performance caused strong and moving emotions in every viewer, that it is extremely demanding as an actor, because the actor made a mask from his own face that he faithfully wore for more than two hours.
The performance was colored by the music of a pianist from Budva Matija Molčanov, a student of the Music Academy in Cetinje, who said that hanging out with the actors was beautiful for him, while his mother, Ana Brazak, pointed out that Matija tried to dispel the darkness and illuminate the paths for future young generations, which we will all try to understand together.
This is the goal of both the author and the acting team of the play "World of Possibilities" - to dispel the darkness and illuminate us with the light of people with developmental disabilities..
Bonus video:
