This summer, the director Andraš Urban also presented himself at the Gradu Teatr with an exceptional performance that he staged in the Royal Theater Zetski dom in Cetinje, which once again confirms that between this ultra-modern and engaged author from Novi Sad (one of the most important in the region), and this theater company from Cetinje, apparently there is also some special artistic closeness.
Urban's new project, "Capital", based on the cult book of the German economist and philosopher Karl Marx, for which he signed the direction, adaptation and visual identity, represents the first staging in the Balkans of one of the most influential works in the history of mankind. The play based on Marx's "Capital", excellently handled in the dramatization of Vedrana Božinović, directed by Urban, could bear the subtitle "History repeats itself either as a tragedy or as a farce, but for us in this space it always repeats itself as both a tragedy and a farce". because this director openly, extremely provocatively and courageously focuses on all our historical and social misconceptions from 1918 to today, falsely constructed political and social stereotypes, national myths that inspire us again and again to nationalism and hatred for each other.
The play "Capital" is the penultimate project created under the auspices of EU Creative Europe, through the EU Collective plays project, and as Urban wrote, it talks about "brutal things, but it is not a story about Yugoslavia."
"That story, like the one from 1918 and 1945, ended in blood. We have it all the time in history. It is a false myth of the Balkans, and we bathe ourselves in that blood as if it were our folklore, we accept demagogic falsehoods that are marketed to us as fundamental truth, and this is done mainly at the expense of endangerment".
This brutal truth, directed by Andraš Urban, was brought excitingly and powerfully by the young actors Jelena Šestović, Stevan Vuković, Pavle Prelević and Jelena Laban (second-year students at the FDU Cetinje, in the class of professor Branislav Mićunović), and quite rightly they were accompanied by several minutes of applause from the packed auditorium of the Budva scene Between the churches.
According to Prelevic, his generation has no experience of those important historical events in Montenegro that are mentioned in the play, everything he knows about his country and this area comes from the present moment, but for him, above all, it was very important to be part of such a play.
"I was born in 1997, I was, let's say, two years old when there was a NATO bombing of Podgorica, and I still remember that for a while. But, unfortunately, many other historical situations repeat themselves, because we don't learn anything from history, and that's why we are in a big break as a society. It is very suffocating for me and my generation, because things that happened more than a hundred years ago are still being talked about, they are not only not solved, but they are constantly waved and manipulated almost daily, and all in the current interest of political and social powerful. We are constantly divided into "us" and "them" - we are us, you are you, and so much hatred grows in us, unconsciously and consciously, and this hatred is fed and poured so much, that it is unbearable for young people", says Prelevic, pointing out that he perceives the play "Capital" as a reflection of the rebellion and rebellion of his generation against today's circumstances that are aggressively and vulgarly imposed on them.
"It would be ideal if this play would make people start to think in a different way about the everyday life in which we live, about those divisions and hatred that poison our lives, while, on the other hand, because of that original accumulation of capital, which Marx talks about in their work, increasingly poor and existentially endangered. And maybe my generation is just a victim of some kind of revolution, but ours is to fight, to try to change things, to try day by day to be as good and responsible as possible in this country, in this space, in this world in which we live - starting from the smallest things, from the fact that we don't throw chewing gum and pickles on the street, to the biggest and most important ones. That's why I'm especially glad when I see a young audience at the play 'Kapital', because I believe that we have to initiate such changes, even though the theater concerns all people and all generations who come there".
For Stevan Vuković, the very expansion of capitalism is difficult, alarming, especially in small and poor countries like ours where people come to the brink of existence, and this is exactly the powerful experience that his generation is living.
"We looked to find the key moments of that capitalism - the octopus, which has huge arms, and we found them in nationalism and consumerism, and in all other situations in which we live. We currently don't know how to fight against them, or we don't have a way, which doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, but unfortunately we don't know how to find it, and that was one of the main interests in our play. Because we are talking about things that concern us, the young generations, and, of course, also concern our parents, because they created them, or they allowed our society to go astray, but I think that above all all these problems fall on young people".
However, as Vuković points out, the young generation is also a beautiful field that can be easily manipulated, especially when it comes to national identity, divisions and the construction of hostility and hatred.
"Through nationalism, we confirm everything that our elders say, all those invented and spent myths, because we are not historically well-versed in facts, nor politically, and we constantly have some general views of things that we have heard from others. On that side, the play 'Capital' is specifically for young people, to somehow open their eyes and vistas that are unknown to them, or perhaps they are not even aware of," Vuković pointed out.
"Kapital" tours all over Europe, even bypassing Podgorica and Nikšić
Since its premiere at the end of October last year, the play "Capital" has been living an exciting life - it has been a guest at festivals in Varna, Bulgaria, Brussels, Ljubljana, Novi Sad and Niš. It is interesting, according to Prelevic, that it has not yet been performed in Podgorica, and that it probably won't be played in Nikšić either.
"Everywhere we had a very good audience reception, because the play also has some universal moments, exactly that Marx's theme about the cruelty of capital, which today takes on terrifying dimensions all over the world. I must say that we are extremely satisfied with the reaction of the audience in Budva, we did not expect such an ovation, and it was really wonderful for us, especially since the Grad Teatar festival itself is very important for us young actors", said Prelevic.
Our environment is still enslaved by patriarchal stereotypes
For the young actress Jelena Laban, this play has the same significance, both when it comes to the topic she deals with, and as an experience of working with the director Andraš Urban and other colleagues.
"This is, in every sense, thematically, linguistically, visually, a very provocative play, especially for our environment, which is still enslaved by patriarchal stereotypes. But we could have assumed all that, knowing Andraš Urban's previous plays. However, we didn't know until the end how much this provocation would be, and when the work on the play started, and when all the things we're talking about started to pass through us, we realized how demanding it would be, but also significant for us and as actors. , and as people. Because the question is constantly being asked, where is the man," Jelena Laban pointed out.
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