The central event of this year's 36th "Grad Teatar" festival is the premiere performance of the play "Macbeth", based on the work of the same name William Shakespeare in adaptation and direction Nikita Milivojevića.
The play is a co-production of JU "Grad Teatar" Budva, Serbian National Theatre, Novi Sad, Belgrade Drama Theatre, ITAKA Art Center, Inđija and Újvidéki Színház (Novi Sad Theatre).
The premiere is scheduled for tonight, August 16, at the Mediterranean Sports Center Budva at 21 p.m. On this occasion, a press conference was held today in the premises of JU "Grad Teatar", where the director of JU "Grad Teatar" spoke. Milena Lubarda Marojević, editor-in-chief of the program Svetlana Ivanovic, director Nikita Milivojevic, costume designer Jelena Stokuća, Amalija Bennett which was in charge of the choice of music and stage movement, actors and actresses Jelena Simic, Marko Markovic, Branislav Jerković, as well as the director of Drama of the Serbian National Theater from Novi Sad Milovan Filipović.
Nikita Milivojević said that he was extremely glad to be at the "Grad Teatar" festival again.
"I'm not just saying that out of courtesy, but because a number of wonderful theater memories from the XNUMXs are connected to "Grad Teatar". Then there was a big break, and now I'm here again and I like it all the more because it brings back some memories. It is a great happiness for the director when he can realize his ideas and plans, especially when it comes to Shakespeare. "Macbeth" is one of those plays for which the director has been preparing for years, and I have been preparing for this play for a long time," he said.
Milivojević added that, although every director desires this piece, he is also afraid of it.
"I watched a dozen different "Macbeths" around the world in preparation for my play, I did seven or eight Shakespeare plays and as part of the "Shakespeare Festival", I had the impression that there are three magic words that make up Shakespeare's world for me, and they are fear, conscience and sleep. Fear and conscience are somehow easy to find, and it seems to me that we have dealt with the dream in his plays the least. There are very interesting studies about it, and Macbeth is considered to be the most dream-related tragedy of all Shakespeare's plays. I followed that trail and it seems to me that it can be an interesting research. This team and I dealt with dreams and what it has to do with Macbeth, we dived a little under the text, unfolded it, kept the structure, but opened it up in a completely new way and got a play that reminds me of the days when we worked here " Banović Strahinj". I'm glad about that because there is some courage and risk in this kind of interpretation. I am grateful to everyone who supported this idea", said Milivojević.
Jelena Stokuća pointed out that her first steps were at the "Grad Teatar" festival.
"Precisely on this day was the premiere of "Leons and Lena" in 1998 at Gradu Teatr, a co-production of the festival and JDP. I am very glad because one such play was the one with which I started my career. I am always happy to come back here, the projects are always interesting, dear and different. "Green Choya Montenegro" was different, and you will have the opportunity to see "Macbeth". I always look forward to working with Nikita because every time is different, what we do is never the same. We always have research we are doing and we experience that process in a different way," she said.
Amalia Bennett said that she is a representative of Scotland, which is interesting considering that they worked on the play "Macbeth".
"It is a pleasure to return to the festival this year with something completely different compared to last year. "Choja" was a local theme that addressed the local population, but this time it is a legend with a wider aspect. This is our unique version of the famous text and we have focused more on the private relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. It seems to me that the piece itself has something that is international because it is based on visuality. I hope everyone will enjoy it," she said.
It was a great pleasure for the actress Jelena Simić that she had the opportunity to collaborate with the whole team again.
"I was most pleased with the unusual process that Nikita and Amalija lead, we have space to explore and deal with the text in a completely different way. Rarely do we here have the opportunity to approach tasks like that. We were inspired to work and I think we achieved a good result".
A great obligation for an actor is to do Shakespeare, said actor Marko Marković.
"I'm not sure it's possible to come up with something new in the aforementioned settings and concepts if it's not brave. Nobility does not visit the lazy and those who are not brave, he would say Jagoš Marković. We are all a structure and a stage and the hall in which we play. We were scared when we arrived in Budva and when the curtains, which are part of the scenography, flew in all directions. However, it all comes together somehow and everything is beautiful in the theater. I am happy to work with my colleagues from Novi Sad, Montenegro, the Hungarian Theater and above all with the young part of the ensemble", he said.
Actor Branislav Jerković said that the curse of the piece followed them months ago.
"We had a series of bad luck, problems, doubts. Nikita's most frequent sentence was - Is this possible? It seems to me that we succeeded, everything came together last night and we will see tonight in which direction we are going, I hope it will be great", said Jerković.
Milovan Filipović expressed great satisfaction that the Serbian National Theater is once again part of a co-production together with JU "Grad Teatar".
"This is a co-production between friends because all the actors are institutions that cooperate very successfully and with high quality. The cooperation between the Serbian National Theater and the City Theater dates back to the founding of the festival, and the City Theater is the most important partner of our theater. This cooperation has especially intensified in the last five years. This reactivation of our cooperation started with the very successful play "Blood Wedding", and with our synergy, that play, in addition to all the situations it was brought into due to circumstances, still survives and is still in the repertoire. Last year, we designed a revue of theater plays dedicated to To Igor Vuk Torbica where Grad Teatar was the most constructive partner of our theater. There we also presented the monograph published by Grad Teatar, "Voice of Virtue". That event strengthened our ties and our friendship, so it was very natural for us to collaborate again. The whole story of friendship was sublimated in one piece, which in the theater world is labeled as a black cat that crosses your path, but here we have a yellow cat on the poster, and I am sure that this play will be successful and that we will, to the satisfaction of the audience and everyone take us out for a long time", said Filipović.
Milena Lubarda Marojević said that, when they set themselves the motto "Conquering Freedom" during the very period of designing the XXXVI festival, they had no idea that these conquests, in addition to content conquests, would also refer to the spaces through which they will pass through in terms of stage this summer.
"A lot has changed since the press conference on the occasion of the opening of the festival, from the locations to the information we gave to the audience, but everything that could be shown was shown. And so everything culminates with this co-production of ours, which we have been waiting for all summer, and today's weather conditions are in favor of the fact that it was necessary to enter a closed space in which we will optimally be able to present this play", said Lubarda Marojević and added that this co-production is important for the festival and JU Grad Theater for several reasons:
"One is the new reading of the classics, which we have been striving for continuously for 36 years and we always consider it a great achievement. Another is joining the "Shakespeare Festival" family, which can trace the future life of this play. The third is the association with five co-producers, a new familiar gathering between five theater companies that opens up new possibilities and extends the practice of getting completely new qualities together from different backgrounds. Finally, I would like to highlight a very important collaboration that has its own continuity and history that is inseparable from the history of the Grad Teatar festival, which is the collaboration with the director Nikita Milivojević", she said, thanking all the co-producers and the people of Budva, especially the management of the Stefan Mitrov Elementary School Ljubiša" and the Mediterranean Sports Center Budva.
Answering a journalist's question, Nikita Milivojević said that if anyone expects to see Shakespeare in action, that will not happen.
"In this sense, one sentence is enough - it is not Shakespeare's fault that he is current in himself, nothing is real except the unreal. If you come to see this play with the attitude - This is Macbeth, this is Lady Macbeth, you will not see that. At one point we have three Macbeths and all the actresses are playing Lady Macbeth. If you come with a pure heart to see that body in a sports hall, you might think, that's it. This team is one team and I think we managed to answer a great Shakespeare", he said.
In addition to Nikita Milivojević, who signs the adaptation and direction, and together with Željko Piškorić and scenography, the author's team of the play consists of Amalia Bennett, who is in charge of stage movement and music selection, Jelena Stokuća, costume designer, and others Dejan Sredojevic in charge of stage speaking.
The play features: Anica Petrović, Nevena Nerandžić, Maja Stojanović, Jelena Simic, Dejan Đonović, Branislav Jerković, Arpad Mesaros, Marko Markovic, Milan Zarić, Sonja Isailović, Pongo Gabor i Ivana Pančić The benefactor.
The premiere is scheduled for tonight at 21:17 p.m., and the play is on the program repertoire on August 18, 19 and XNUMX.
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