Although universal and very important for every individual, community, society and country, identity issues are additionally raised as necessary today, given that we live in circumstances where exactly identity is used as the main means of manipulation. Instead of mutual harmony, tolerance, coexistence and acceptance of the richness of diversity, and focus on oneself and knowing, building and improving one's own 'I', and therefore everything around us within which we function, we are witnessing divisions based on identity, whether whether religious, racial, national or any other...
And those questions are especially close to the well-known Bosnian-Herzegovinian theater director Dino Mustafić which deals with them, encouraging the audience and viewers to face the multi-layered and complex reflections of identity on everyday life and functioning, whether in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, regions, Europe...
Always happy to be seen in our country, this time Mustafić was a guest at the Festival of International Alternative Theater FIAT, in Podgorica on Sunday evening, with the ambient play "Ashamed". The piece talks about identity, discrimination, prejudices and stereotypes, but also about the mutual relations of minority and majority identities that exist in contemporary democratic societies that are often (self) called multinational, multicultural, multiconfessional and so on "multi"...
With an engaged approach, the play encourages a series of identity questions that represent current socio-political topics, but also self-awareness processes and dilemmas... The play "Ashamed" is the second from the competitive selection of the 37th edition of the festival, whose motto this year is "Identity". The piece was performed on Sunday evening, but instead of in the park in front of the Petrović castle in Kruševac, the actors played inside the castle, which gave the play an additional dimension in the context of intimacy, emotional charge and energy exchange between the audience and the ensemble, as well as the space.
Just 15 minutes after the start of the performance, the performance was interrupted by heavy rain followed by thunder and a power outage, so the audience subsequently decreased... The more optimistic and persevering ones welcomed the performance indoors, and the director Mustafić, by being in a short roku, through an effective agreement with the ensemble, adapted the performance to an insufficiently known, interior space, again showing why he is one of those who stand out in the region and beyond.
For the text, based on which the play "Osramoćeni" was created, the author Ayad Akhtar won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013, and it talks about a liberal and civilized world that is not really, given that it is torn apart by racism, nationalism, religious bigotry and xenophobia. The focus is on problems and topics that make society and individuals in it struggle for survival while the intellectual elite fades, citizenship disappears, terrorism grows, and people distance themselves from each other, socially and emotionally, and politics is reduced to disparaging kitsch and entertainment wider identity divisions. The play raises issues of racial, religious and national identity, as well as problems such as Islamophobia, and all of this is easily reflected in the society in which we live.
"Akhtar dissects in depth the consequences of terrorist attacks around the world on the relationships between colleagues, friends, spouses who come from different cultures to our seemingly liberal and multicultural society," the FIAT website points out.
And with Akhtar's text, the engaged theatrical and social voice of Dino Mustafić, and the actors and actresses spoke masterfully: Ermin Bravo, Maja Izetbegović, Boris Ler, Snezana Bogićević i Lazar Dragojevic.
"The heroes of our play show how many challenges the issue of tolerance or intolerance towards 'others' presents in a society that is closed by national, ethnic, religious and racial boundaries. It is clear that societies based on diversity are actually a set of different identities and cultures about which today in the world, and also in our region, there is an ideological-political struggle towards the acceptability or unacceptability of diversity in one society. I hope that the artistic language of this play will show that in our society, as well as in this story, there is no place for easy qualifications about civilization and culture", said director Dino Mustafić.
The visual identity of the piece is signed Mirna Ler, musical composition Mirza Redžepagić, design Ismar Žalica, photo Aida Redžepagić, VFX Alen Ajanovic and text translation Maja Winkler. They are producers Narcisa Cvitanović i Alban Ukaj, and the play is a project of the "Contact" production in partnership with the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
After the game, a round table on the topic "Competitions: the power or the powerlessness of cultural politics?" was planned, on the basketball court in Njegoševo Park, but it was subsequently postponed, and the organizers will inform the public about the new date.
The return of Rada Rapida and two student plays
The audience's attention is especially attracted by tonight's music segment of FIAT... It was announced earlier that after years of hiatus, Rade Rapido will hold a concert on the basketball court in Njegoševo Park, tonight at 22.30:2023 p.m. On that occasion, Rade Rapido will present the new album "Glasovi comelle". With him, the new name of the Podgorica rap scene "Skoveche" is performing, who, after two singles "Hit season" and "Ojeme li rapovat/stress rap", announced his first studio album, which should be released in early XNUMX.
The Sudent play "Finger" based on the text of Doruntina Basha, the graduation exam of acting students from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts from Cetinje, in the class of Branimir Popović, will be performed tonight in the hall of the Dodest Cultural and Information Center "Budo Tomović", at 20 pm.
After that, another student play "The Glass Menagerie" follows, the annual exam of second-year acting students in Dubravka Drakić's class. Milica Pejović, Jovana Brnović, Miloš Kašćelan and Matija Memedović play in the play, based on the text of Tennessee Williams, on the big stage of KIC at 21 p.m.
Bonus video:
