In the song, "U kazalište", Miroslav Krleža says "With words like on the edge of a knife / haunted actors float like sorcerers." I was in the "Gospoda Glembajevi" crew for more than two months and convinced myself of the accuracy of Krleža's verses. To the dedication and gift of the team. This ship of lunatics was led through Scylla and Charybdis by Danilo Marunović. In the roar of the musical cavalcade, in the rhythm of effort and miracles. There were trials of ice and fire, but that strengthened the chorus of conspirators. Valentin Svetozarev (set designer), Danilo Malović (lighting), Vanja Ciraj Džudža (costume designer), Tamara Vujošević-Mandić (stage movement and the good spirit of the play), Bojana Mijović (playwright) assisted Marunović. Artistic magic floated on stage, precision in movement and costume. The wave and the horizon. Choreography as honesty. The costume sculpts the body, and the body sculpts the costume. On stage - reduced opulence. And details reminiscent of Krleža's era. And in the distance, the sounds of Leonard Cohen and Greenwood.
In the great opus of Miroslav Krleža, I find the best commentary on the life of the Glembaj family: "O curse of blood, madness and flesh". Leone Glembaj I am like Hamlet. "The music goes crazy in his nerves and the nerves sing like taut strings." "From early childhood, he was threatened by family life, threatened by the hatred swirling in the family."
This family infernal hell, family and social, is like that of Henrik Ibsen in the play "The Wild Duck". This contemporary hell on the soil of Yugoslavia has no one or no one, among playwrights, to describe. Neither in Yugoslavia, nor in Montenegro. I expect that from Bojana Mijović. This adaptation, this interpretation of Krleža in CNP has that intention, that goal. And you will see how much we succeeded on December 17, 2024. The energy of the play "Lords of Glembeji" rests on the feet, shoulders and lungs of Miš Obradović. From the first melancholic-philosophical scene with sister Andjelika, to the last scene of Baroness Castelli's murder.
Mišo Obradović plays double pass with sister Anđelika, double pass with priest Zilbebrant. A double dog for life and death with old Glembaj and in the finale of the play until the last breath with Baroness Kasteli.
Stevan Vuković in the role of Zilbebrant. What a sumptuous gift of a young actor. Luxury as simplicity. Like an Olympic narcissist. The scene between Leone and Zilberbrandt is one of the best etudes I've seen in the theater. Stevan Vuković will be in the Croatian National Theater Leone Glembaj in fifteen years.
What are the scores of Miš Obradović, from pause, from silence, to fury, from cries to roars, from love to hate. The most fragile people are the bravest, remember and burn. Spit and slap, but don't humiliate yourself. Mišo Obradović says this to the audience with an iron-eyed look. That is the moral of this play. And I would say to incite rebellion. I guarantee the life of the conspirators in this play...
The topicality of the drama "The Lords of Glembej" is in every line, dialogue, monologue, didascalia. Krleža's diagnosis of contemporary Europe is as precise as a sandbox: "Today, Europe is a lonely house where crime sleeps." That diagnosis is fiercely defined by Leone performed by Miš Obradović.
Svetozar Cvetković, the bard of the Yugoslav theater, plays the role of old Glembaj. How much valer, syncopation of Svetozar Cvetković as Glembaj. Cruelty, brutality, power, hatred, love, cunning, cunning. Cvetković played all those games without a cut, with a good sense of space, with a great ear for his partner. In the second act, Leone and Glembaj burrowed into each other like a sparrow in a sparrow. That cruel confrontation ended with the death of Glembaj. In his death throes with the appearance of Baroness Kasteli, old Glembaj ended up in the arms of his son. It is a tribute to Michelangelo and his Pieta sculpture. The Pijet scene was conceived by Danilo Marunović.
Krleža was thinking of Marlen Dietrich when he wrote about Baroness Kastela. Baroness Kasteli needs to be defended on stage. Leone and Baroness Kasteli met after seventeen years. "I didn't spend my childhood like you playing Thousand and One Nights on the Kirman Terzian carpet! At the age of twelve, I was left on the street, Leone. My Glembaj marriage was a financial transaction, I admit that. I paid very dearly for my Glembajeva transaction! Bloody!''
All lyrical, all tragic, all melancholic love, non-sensual tones were played by Kristina Obradović. She managed to convey innocence without protection. She played the one and only love of her life, the love for a student from Cambridge, with all the melodrama qualities in the recipe of the great master Werner Fassbinder. The last meeting in a passionate embrace in the early morning rain between Leone and Baroness Kasteli is worth a lifetime. With the magnificent music of Johnny Greenwood.
There are no small episodic roles, especially with Miroslav Krleža. Una Lucic as sister Andjelika. As Lučić plays that silent eros, she enjoys the antics of her dead husband's brother. He enjoys the stage as his painting model. Eros in the third act will lead her to the throne of the newly enthroned ruler of Glembay. The scene that opens the first act, on the proscenium of sisters Angelica and Leone while they are discussing the essential principles of life, reason and sensitivity, is anthological. I see young Una as Euripides' Electra.
With so much temperament, precision and irresistible stage charm, Lazar Dragojević plays Puba, the legal representative of the Glembaj family. In his counter-statement, Puba shows the reverse side of corruption, hypocrisy, falsification of the truth of our present-day Montenegrin society. I see him in a year or so in the role of Shakespeare's Regiment.
Danilo Čelebić as Fabrici. He enters the scene with so much ceremonial experience, and conquers it. Both the stage and the auditorium shine. How convincingly he talks about tradition, about the business success of the Glembays. With how much fire in his eyes he confronts Leone when he hurts his family honor. And what an attitude, what a relativization of death above the rested Glembay in the third act. I see Celebić for one of the next seasons as Prospero in Shakespeare's Tempest.
Nikola Perišić as Dr. Altman, the quiet wise counselor of old Glembay. What a specter of death he played, what definitions of death, he played it all with imperceptible transitions and irresistible stage charm. I see Sheka as a magnificent Shylock.
Kristina Mrkić as Anita opens and closes this Krleža drama almost spectacularly, and how - you will see at the premiere.
Predrag Pavićević as Franc dominates the stage with his gait and basketball height. I expect a horog in the last second of the play.
A great contribution to this play was made by the proofreader Dubravka Vukotić, an excellent actress.
Gorica Šuškavčević is not just a prompter. She has the best ear for the rhythm of the play. But nothing without the ubiquitous prop man Vlad Martinović. And Nela Otašević, who keeps the team together and in military discipline.
The tick has been an exclamation point since birth. A sign of rebellion. So rebel against him. Every day in Montenegro must be July 13. Freedom is won every day.
So let's make a toast like Shylock would make for the premiere on December 17th. Cheers.
Bonus video:
