The circumstances in which criminals become stars, innocent people are convicted without trial, lies are turned into truth through prolonged repetition, and the truth proclaims lies, while unscrupulous officials, eager for power, authority and money, carry out the bloody deeds of politicians without question, despite those who raise their voices and oppose, but are in the minority - are a cruel, but also realistic depiction of society, the system and the times, as well as the play "Richard III" which will be premiered today at the Royal Theatre Zetski Dom in Cetinje.
However, this is just one of the aspects of reality and action that the eminent director emphasizes in an interview with "Vijesti". Dino Mustafic. According to the famous Shakespeare's drama, he represents the Richard III of the 21st century.
I always address the ideal spectator in the theater, I imagine him, I even see his place in the hall. Such a spectator is my interlocutor, his emotional and intellectual experience of the play that I create together with the actors and authors is of inestimable importance to me.
The premiere of the play is tonight on the stage of Zetski dom at 20 pm, and the rerun is tomorrow at the same time.
The cast consists of: Varja Đukić, Srdjan Grahovac, Miloš Pejović, Goran Vujović, Jelica Vukčević, Jelena Laban, Masa Labudović, Vule Marković, Pavle Prelević, Anja Misović i Nevena Penava. He is in charge of scenography Dragutin Broz, costume Lina Lekovic, move Tamara Vujošević Mandić, music Vjera Nikolić and the assistant directors are Nina Martinovic, Doroteja Buskovic i Andrija Rasovic.
In an interview for "Vijesti", the famous director from Sarajevo announces the play, talks about the motives for staging this play, the situation in the Balkans, the European Union, individuals and movements that shape lives, distorted values that have obscured the true ones, talks about theater, the importance of repertoire, the Sarajevo National Theater, of which he is the director, and emphasizes the importance of man...
One of Shakespeare's most famous and most performed works is the play “Richard III.” How was this play chosen for staging at the Royal Theatre and what were the decisive motives for the staging?
The importance of this text can also be seen in the context of the current Balkan (or world) situation, as a contemporary political thriller. In this genre, the main characters are politicians, criminals and fraudulent officials, or rather, silent people. Criminals become stars, innocent people are convicted without trial and declared criminals, lies are turned into truth through long-term repetition, and truth proclaims lies, and unscrupulous officials, eager for power, authority and money, carry out the bloody deeds of politicians without question. Admittedly, there are those who raise their voices and oppose such a situation, but they are in the minority, and they do not write history. And a play always has a meaning and a reason when it opens up questions for us about what we ourselves can do to avoid becoming victims of such a bloody history. I had all this in mind when the artistic director of the Royal Theatre Zetski Dom Stella Miskovic, invited me to come back and work in Cetinje after 20 years. I have fond memories of my work there, the joy of meeting those people and the city, so I had no hesitation in my choice.
I have reason to fear individuals, parties, movements that appeal to the people. For populists who favor the people-populus, and more specifically ethnos, more than demos, the populist belief is nationalistically colored... An appeal to the people is always a "call against". Balkan leaders have been doing this for years, creating an atmosphere of hostility, the people merging with the party in opposition to "them"; all in accordance with the classic scheme of autocracy and autocentrism...
How would you present, or rather announce, your “Richard III” that is “modern,” while remaining faithful to the text?
Our Richard III of the 21st century is a universe unto itself, perfectly precise and thoughtful, although by its rules elusive to the ordinary man. It is a parallel world of evil that is constantly boiling with enormous, incomparable energy. Shakespeare determined the elements of the mechanism, it seems to me that we have presented them strongly visually, very aware that none of us has the answer to the reign of evil, perhaps it is not up to us. Perhaps it is up to the evil that emerges, that takes shape in the given political and historical circumstances. In this context, this play is particularly interesting as a political thriller, a depiction of how one man decides to seize power in a Machiavellian, immoral and evil way. He manages to overcome all obstacles and reach the throne over the corpses of numerous rivals and relatives. We see that this is not just a story about that cruel king, but about all rulers, or at least about the majority of unscrupulous rulers, whom power, might and money make even crueler than they were before they got their hands on the scepter. When you have an actor like Srđan Grahovac in the role of Richard III, then it is possible to examine all the nuances of autocratic consciousness, to penetrate deeply into a character that sows fear and leaves the smell of death behind, sometimes doing it violently and cruelly, and sometimes with distance and calm, creepy and easy.
The play comes at a time when it seems that truth, honor, and responsibility no longer have even symbolic value. How much, in this time and social context, does Shakespeare inspire you, and how much does his work reflect everything that is happening?
Great writers like Shakespeare return to our lives when needed because their themes are eternal. Shakespeare reminds us with his Richard in this time of global threats, which are pressing upon us, and in many ways especially, that it is the duty of theatre to question and disturb. He is subversive even today. We recognize Richard as the path to hell, which has dangerously loomed over humanity like a storm, we are moving inexorably towards a dystopian image of the world. The horizons of freedom are closing, if we do not seek, through resistance, a way out for escape and salvation that rehabilitates humanism, we will be left with only darkness and nihilism.
Power, greed, corruption, the struggle for the throne... What is the state of all these issues on a local, but also global level? Is there more of a counterbalance to these phenomena or is man, increasingly alienated, isolating himself from potential action, reaction, rebellion...?
Politics in this region is burdened with all possible ethical and social deviations, it has not experienced structural changes despite the fact that they were urgent. As an artist, I believe that essential changes are impossible without culture. This means that a special place in the establishment of democracy is occupied by the presence of culture and art, civil society, a free and critical public. Therefore, a theater that bravely and radically examines the patterns of power, just like our Richard III. Even in this play, we draw what happens when a parochial, partisan and autocratic political culture prevails. Then fascism, as a bastard of democracy, is close. It is necessary today to seek and demand that a democratic political culture - a culture of tolerance, a culture of dialogue, a culture of compromise become our orientation in the future. However, we are still far from that. I'm not sure if we have the social capacity for a turnaround. Even those who fight corruption are deeply corrupt. It has metastasized, eroding all social norms. It's a real social Darwinism in which only the strong and clever, the suitable and obedient, those who are pleasing to the ruler have a chance at a normal life.
In Richard's character we can recognize many of today's power figures - unscrupulous, manipulative, hungry for control and competition. How much is he all around us and what are his weapons - some fiery or nuclear, algorithm, lie, manipulation...?
Richard today has no visible bloody hands for many, but he creates a system of lies and manipulation. It is a society of depravity and persecution of humanity. The government redefines and corrects the current desperate situation with the overarching political power of the state. This means that it extends political support beyond the general will of the people. All of this resembles an archaic variant of the once conceived one-party pluralism or uniformity known from previous times. And then as now, the charades, the will of the people and the power of the state came to the fore. And it is known that this is a cover for populism and autocracy... But also a new umbrella for ultimate support for the state, or rather the leader who has identified with it.
We do not have politicians with the character to become constructive participants in the dialogue with Europe with their stance. These are forced "concessions" that should initiate the model of a democratic society where human rights, freedom of expression and the rule of law are established canons of values.
You ask the question of how an ordinary person becomes a victim of the system. How does this happen, is it inevitable, and can an ordinary person, without ideology and background, become a protagonist of social change? We have examples in the region of both brave and young people who rebel and fight...
Your question may be what to do in the general social chaos. Young and rebellious people in Serbia are confronting us with the fact that there is no moral life without the idea of duty and a sense of responsibility. Conscience has suffered drastically in the Balkans. It seems to me a long time ago. It has called into question collective and personal identity. There is no authority in the whole of social life, and especially in the political field. In such a reality, people with low morals and the lowest motives cope best. We are not only experiencing a crisis of legality, but also a crisis of humanity. Kjerkegorova the thought of a time without values in which everything becomes a role and a presentation as if it were written for the local circumstances. In a society in which empathy towards beings in need and suffering has perished, not only compassion for others has withered, but also self-respect.
Kantovo The knowledge that there is no morality without freedom has proven to be more vital than anything else, it is difficult to think about the universality of moral values and the system of moral norms. This is one of the reasons why the search for a way out of moral collapse will probably take the longest. It is not possible to renew oneself morally without essential and structural changes. Moral intelligence is a condition for purification, a path to catharsis and civil forms of life that autocrats prevent by all means. From media persecution of dissenters to repressive methods and the use of force when it is convenient to lose one's seat.
Is the democracy we live in just a euphemism or a mask of a different system that individuals and organizations have adapted to themselves and their personal interests? All countries in the Western Balkans strive for democracy, how do you see that path, the struggle, but also the guidelines of the European Union, and democracy within that community?
The idea of the EU is not an expanded nation-state, but a way to free mutual differences, through political dialogue, from those elements that could give rise to conflicts, with the aim of preserving these differences, not erasing them. We do not have politicians with the character who, with their attitude, become a constructive participant in the dialogue with Europe. These are forced “concessions” that should initiate the model of a democratic society where human rights, freedom of expression and the rule of law are established canons of values. And one more thing, if accepting the other and different were the only characteristic of European identity, it would be an extremely weak identity, he wrote Cvetan Todorov reminding us that “difference becomes identity, and plurality becomes unity, and as paradoxical as it may sound, it is a way to give differences equal status in the EU.” The world’s movement towards the ideal of a civilization of rapprochement of differences, which European identity defines as the reasonable management of plurality, has no future with Balkan-style politicians from our alley.
As the director of the National Theatre Sarajevo, you bear the responsibility of the institution, but also of the function. Despite this, as a director and a person, you are often against the system. How do you see the work and obligations of people who hold leading positions in cultural institutions? On the other hand, how much has politics interfered in each of the institutions and what does that mean for artists, the audience, and society?
The selfless engagement of intellectuals is a real rarity today. And their social engagement is most often self-serving, they have fit into a system that only accepts them as such, otherwise they are rejected as critics of society. Opposing the authorities means opting for an uncertain existence, marginalization. There are artists who decide that their critical and poetic language clearly touches on the sphere of politics, and that by autonomous, intellectual means. I highly value such people, I consider it the most difficult intellectual position in which you preserve your own and professional dignity as well as freedom. I think that critical thinking has become a disruptive factor of newly composed elites and states, dominated by fear, as an inevitable consequence of very acute social pressures, economic and social insecurity. This phenomenon of fear, which is constantly applied as a kind of daily political practice, through the methods of an unlawful state, comes with the logic that everything can be bought and sold, and man is the cheapest commodity there. I do not want to reconcile myself to this fact, which we have accepted as historical or as an evil fate. Fortunately for me, I have met people with moral integrity in real life who cannot reconcile themselves to this. They are my role models. At the same time, many of them did not survive this transition, which takes a long time and is a brain-stretching process. That is why I see this time as a graveyard of ethical idealism where Richard III is a natural occurrence.
If the task of every repertoire is to ask questions about power, do repertoires respond to that task and to whom does power belong: to politicians, to capital, to those who create narratives...?
I have a reason to fear individuals, parties, movements that appeal to the people. For populists who favor the people-populus, and more specifically ethnos more than demos, the populist belief is nationalistically colored, summarized in the following: “They (those from here, here) are better than others”. An appeal to the people is always a “call against”. Balkan leaders have been doing this for years, creating an atmosphere of hostility, the people merge with the party in opposition to “them”; all in accordance with the classic scheme of autocracy and autocentrism. I am trying to understand how it is possible that so many years after the devastating war of the 90s, the most capable and most moral among us have not managed to break through politically, who will turn politics into a true fight for the common good instead of party privileges and personal gain that we have been watching for almost thirty years. I guess we have begun to resemble the monsters from that famous sentence Radomir Konstantinović: “If you don't notice the monster, you are the monster yourself.” We have become numb, passive, neutral, egotistical, waiting for a better life at a distance.
You often talk about theater as a place of truth. Does it have the power to awaken the audience, to move society, or are we used to lies as the currency of survival? Does theater provoke the political order, or does it more often retreat into a zone of neutrality?
I believe that theatre art can change many things on an individual level, although I do not believe that it can influence global social and historical trends. Together with my team, artistic and production, I have done everything in the four years of my term as director to position the National Theatre differently because we live in a time of globalisation, multiculturalism and internationalisation. In this context, we asked ourselves what our cultural identity is that contributes to European modernity as well as to classics? That is why it is a challenge today to retell old stories or those stories that directly concern us, and they can be heritage, classic or contemporary stories, using a specific theatrical language. And we in BiH have a generation of interesting directors, actors, writers and other authors who can respond to this challenge. We have given them a chance with guest appearances by eminent authors from the region and the world. The only value judgment I am interested in is from the audience, and this was evident from the perception of our performances and the filled seats in the auditorium, which is full. We have achieved our goal, which is for the National Theatre to become a contemporary place of meeting and creation.
What kind of audience are you addressing, and what kind of audience are you aiming for?
I always address the ideal spectator in the theater, I imagine him, I even see his place in the hall. Such a spectator is my interlocutor, his emotional and intellectual experience of the play that I create together with the actors and authors is invaluable to me. Sometimes I have a polemic with him in my mind, even a heated one, sometimes I agree or completely disagree, but we talk through the play. In this time, dialogue is worth its weight in gold because all around us is the roar of petty-bourgeois comforts who are only and exclusively interested in a few likes on social networks.
Carefully and courageously, painstakingly and stressfully, aware of responsibility and challenges
While waiting for the premiere, what can you say, what is the process like for you?
Usually, polite sentences are used when talking about a theatrical process, because it is also an intimate matter for a director who, during his work, discovers and digs into himself, but also connects with actors and collaborators, leads an intense dialogue, sometimes productive, but also not infrequently very painful and difficult. It does not always go easily and without difficulties of various natures, from creative to technical-organizational. What I always give myself as a task is to create an atmosphere during work in which everything is possible during rehearsals, from research to a studious search for all levels of the story and characters into which we bring our experience. I am most interested in the people who make up the theater, which is why the process is more important to me than the results, and has been for a long time, than the success or reception of the play. Here, specifically, we had one of the greatest and most difficult tragic texts in the history of literature, so we moved through that material carefully and bravely, painstakingly and stressfully, sometimes with a tense temperature, aware of the responsibility and challenges ahead of us. So, for me, it's very exhausting work, I guess that's the only way to deal with Shakespeare.
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