Slobodan Milatović's project opens Grad Theater

Montenegrin director Slobodan Milatović will open this year's Grad Teatar Budva festival with his theater project. As this year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Njegoš, Milatović's performance is also dedicated to Njegoš, as well as stage performances for which the Montenegrin bishop and his work were an inspiration.

The theater project for the opening of this year's Grad Theater will cover the 600th anniversary of the existence of the Praskvica monastery, where, among other things, a segment from Milatović's project will be performed. Everything will happen on June 15, and the project is called "Look, an idea, an immortal spark", a verse from Njegoš's "Lights of the Microcosm".

As Milatović told "Vijesti", the project that will be launched this year's Grad Theater is an "ambient music and stage festival in the form of a procession".

"The celebration takes place in the wider complex of the Praskvica monastery and is exclusively based on Njegoš's work. The act of procession includes the ritual arrival of the audience, as well as a tour of the wider monastery complex where the artistic program takes place. The artistic program is divided into three segments that take place in different locations ", Milatović explained.

He states that in the first segment there is a musical part that will take place at the location of the olive grove at the entrance to the monastery complex. In this part, the mixed choir "Jedinstvo" from Kotor will perform choral compositions inspired by Njegoš's work.

In the second segment, which will be dramatic in the gate of the monastery and in the monastery itself with quarters and church, the actors Petar Božović, Voja Brajović, Bane Popović and Srđan Grahovac, who gave a special stamp to their stage performances of Njegoš's works, will speak the text. As Milatović explains, they will speak texts from their roles in works written by Njegoš, realized on local stages.

The selection includes the works "Mountain Wreath", "Šćepan Mali" and "Luča mikrokosma", which will be spoken at different points of the monastery complex. Actress Julija Milačić will be one of the actors of this event.

As part of Milatović's ambient music-stage spectacle, in the third segment, a choreographic staging with elements of ritual and performance accompanied by instrumental music inspired by Njegoš's work will be performed at the location of the meadow below the monastery. The participants of this program segment are at the same time the leaders of the procession with which the audience is directed towards the program segments.

Slobodan Milatović directed over 70 theater plays. He made over thirty theater adaptations and wrote dramatic texts: "Marko Kraljević Superstar", "Dr. Vukašin Marković", "Fashion Show", "Department for Collective Psychotherapy"... He is the founder of alternative and ambient theater in Montenegro. He is the founder of the first and only alternative theater in Montenegro, DODEST (1974-1999). His plays regularly win awards at all international theater festivals around the world. He is the winner of the Thirteenth of July Award.

Always a modern story

"Njegoš always has to have some ideological basis. In my opinion, Njegoš is a very modern story. His works are very modern at the level of dramaturgy. And "Mountain Wreath" itself has become a symbol as a work.

There are many sybolic levels in it. The modern theater is a symbol in itself. That's why it's unnecessary to do it as a story, based on events," said Milatović, who, for the sake of reminding, used excavators as actors in his play "Luča Mikrokosma" in the 90s.

Milatović noted that in "Gorski vijenc" there are all kinds of conflicts, including conflicts of religions, nations, groups, and individuals, but that the key conflict and what radically sets it apart from other conflicts is the one surrounding Bishop Danilo. In his analysis of Njegoš's works, he noticed many elements of Greek tragedy, both in structure and idea.