Meeting FIAT: Remember - love has no alternative...

She said 'Ain't nobody can give nobody/ What they really need anyway.'

Bruce Springsteen, "Dry Lightning", The Ghost of Tom Joad (Columbia, 1995)

Belgrade, the white city, has BITEF - the Belgrade International Theater Festival. And we - the people of Podgorica and others who have Podgorica in their hearts - we also have our own little FIAT - International Alternative Theater Festival. The acronym of our festival is more beautiful than the acronym of their festival. Belgrade would have to admit that to us.

The beautiful Latin word - fiat - would mean, roughly - let it be.

So we have: Fiat lux - Let there be light, Fiat Panis - Let there be bread, and of course: fiat justitia ruat caelum - Let there be justice, even if the sky falls.

However, it should be emphasized that we - honorable and honest Montenegrins and other citizens of the State of Montenegro - would never allow the sky to fall for the sake of justice - or for the sake of anything else. Let everything collapse, only let the sky remain above, where it belongs. And as for justice - who said that the concept of justice is nothing but an illusion?

The most wonderful of all Fiats is the so-called Mary's Fiat (Luke, 1: 26-38).

The angel Gabriel (Gavrilo, Jibril), the messenger of God, announces (what the Croats would say) to Mary that she will conceive, that she will give birth to a son and that she will name him Jesus - that's the so-called. The Annunciation or Annunciation - that dear Mary, after certain ambiguities have been positively resolved (Mary is a virgin at that moment, there is no mention of a husband or lover, etc.) would still say what was hers - Fiat mihi - Let it be to me (in Latin, 1 : 38: "Dixit autem Maria: Ecce ancilla Domini: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum. Et discessit ab illa angelus.", translated, 1: 38: "Then Mary said: Behold the servant of the Lord, let it be unto me according to thy word.

And the angel departed from her.") - by which she actually gave her consent for God's plan to be carried out on her.

I would add that in cases where the mind falls from the highest, or relatively high place, the Montenegrin warrior tradition dictates the same answer: May it be according to your word, Lord.

In Belgrade, in the old days when I was a trainee from Belgrade, it was relatively easy to get tickets for BITEF - I just had to send an SMS message and two tickets would be waiting for me at the ticket office.

I'm not saying that I was someone and something in BG, far from it - but I also had bright moments, not that I wasn't.

Last year, in all my naivety, I tried to get a ticket for the Podgorica premiere of "Three Sisters" by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, directed by Ana Vukotić and Slobodan Milatović (V&M) - with that performance, I'll remind you, last year's FIAT opened - but we it didn't work. The lady sent me to the Art Pavilion to buy a ticket — There are plenty of tickets, don't worry — that's what she told me. And I raced to the Art Pavilion - where the show later took place - when there: closed.

There's no way I'll get used to Podgorica's connections. I know what FIAT is - I'm too much from Podgorica not to know - but I can't switch from Belgrade to Podgorica. If it's a trick to get tickets for BITEF - especially for the most popular shows, especially on the day of the show - it doesn't have to mean that it's hard to get tickets for the show that opens FIAT. Tickets were regularly sold - and at a very affordable price: 5 euros.

And if it hadn't happened that on that very evening my dear friend - who got two tickets for "Three Sisters" on some forum - had a fight with a girl - and if the girl hadn't sent him to three... (nice) - I wouldn't have never certified "Three Sisters" directed by V&M.

So fate wanted otherwise - and it turned out, to my great pleasure, that fate was right. Namely, that evening, V&M (especially V, I constantly felt her hand in all of this) took us exactly where we were supposed to be taken. In my case - in the Titograd of my youth.

There were certain problems along the way, let's face it. The road was full of holes and curves, the climbs were sharp and long - and the vehicle's cubic capacity was inadequate for difficult climbs. We almost boiled it. Nobody ever said Chekhov was easy. We almost stepped on the cat - but when the team finally got into the damn rhythm and rocked the swing, everything was immediately forgiven. We knew that she would have no problem making a small embroidery all the way to the end - and that we would get a kiss at the end - and with the kiss, a cookie.

If you remember the punch delivered by Kandi in "Golly Moses, She's A Muffin" (Two and a Half Man; S3,19): "With Alan it's like being in the back seat of a car driven by a really smart kangaroo . He may go up on the curb a couple times, but he'll get you there" - then you know what I'm talking about.

Perhaps, in the beginning, between the Prozorov sisters a little of that Chekhovian sisterly emotion was missing - but when I felt that Bojana Malinovska (Olga) was seriously increasing the pace - and that Julija Milačić (Maša) was following with ease - I switched to auto-pilot and slept for two - three minutes.

I had a strange dream. I am, like, the director of CNP, Olga and Maša are from Podgorica, students in BG, roommates, they are not sisters (Olga - Architecture, Maša - Psychology). Veršinjin (Miloš Pejović) is Maša's boyfriend. Olga is convinced that Vershinin is a bad man - and that there is no chance that he will make Masha happy. She is very adamant about it - and that evening, Maša unfriends both Vershinin and Olga. Veršinina mainly because she feels with her whole being that she cannot surrender to him completely - and Olga because she is no longer able to bear being around her. That would be the first act.

In the second act, we have a chance meeting between Olga and Maša in Petrovac, on the waterfront, some three years after the great catharsis. Masha finds out that Olga and Vershinin are married - and that Olga is pregnant - so another, even stronger catharsis is about to happen...

I also liked Tuzenbach (Zoran Vujović) - I would try to play him in the third or fourth act - in a solo version with Maša - he is unhappily in love with Maša, or something along those lines.

I would disband the rest of the ensemble, of course.

I woke up right before the fireworks started. The ending was definitely memorable.

So, if we take into account all the mitigating circumstances - after all, this is PG, i.e. CG, there was never any serious money or good music here - V&M demonstrated that you can somehow reach a solid goal - even if you can go a few steps further.

The FIAT version of "Three Sisters" was a very intense theatrical experience - as if I was watching and listening - more watching than listening - a cleverly packaged music video of a decent female band - or an explosive trailer announcing the integral version of the play "Three Sisters" by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - which , unfortunately, we won't have a chance to look in the near future.

FIAT - Festival of International Alternative Theater - who knows which order, it could be discussed - tonight opens in Podgorica, the former Titograd.

In a country where we have informal centers of power as an alternative to responsible government, particular interests as an alternative to general interests, in a country where an alternative truth rules and an alternative justice is distributed - the festival of international alternative theater goes without saying.

On this behalf, we wish luck and success to the organizers.

And remember - love has no alternative...