“Fathers and Fathers” at the Grada Teatr: Splitting, Legacy and Pervasive Current Affairs

The drama program of the XXXIX Grad Teatar festival continued last night in the amphitheater of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Stanjevići with the performance of the play "Fathers and Fathers" in directed by Veljko Mićunović.

The play “Fathers and Fathers” brings a powerful, multi-generational family drama, set in a turbulent period of Serbian and Yugoslav history from the end of the 19th century to World War II. The fate of the Medaković family is followed through three generations of men and the women who surround them, with an emphasis on the British wife Elizabeth, whose arrival brings tension and symbolic otherness to the traditional, patriarchal environment. The central line of the play is the conflict between ideological and emotional legacies – between traditionalism and modernity, national and foreign, faith and reason, revolution and civil order. It is a powerful and intellectually complex play that, through personal destinies, touches on issues of national identity, political fractures and personal responsibility. Mićunović builds the play as a dynamic, intimate and politically contextualized depiction of a society in transformation. His ability to translate historical themes into the contemporary language of theater, with aesthetically precise scenography and mise-en-scène that symbolically elaborates the relationships between the characters, is particularly noteworthy. The play was awarded at Sterijino Pozorje with as many as 9 awards, including those for direction and dramatization.

At the City Theater, playing on the open stage of the Stanjevići Monastery gave additional weight to its atmosphere – the space contributed to the feeling of eternity and heritage that are intertwined in the play itself.

Veljko Mićunović, the director of the play, said that performing in an open space is always a challenge. “This is even a curiosity because it is our first time performing a play in the open air and I think it is nice that it is the City Theatre and somehow it means something intimate to me. Although the play is not new because it has been playing for almost two seasons, it is always a special experience and through the meditative character that the play has. I think the ambiance was so pleasant with that confrontation of the audience and all the topics that we raise,” said Mićunović and added that it was only after this performance that he realized how penetrating and current the play “Fathers and Fathers” is.

"I'm looking through a very sober lens because I haven't seen the play in a long time either, and tonight I watched it with a shift in perspective and realized how much, through some of the events that have been happening in the last year, how pervasive it actually is, how important these identity issues are to us and how important this generational legacy is to us and how acute it actually is at this moment. What certainly remains, why we did this play in the first place, is that Selenić lens, which is terribly significant to me and which somehow drove me to do this. It is our essential failure to recognize diversity, that eternal division of ours, that evil blood that we sow and which we repeat over and over again."

Nikola Rakočević, who plays the character of Stevan Medaković, pointed out that acting outside the theater brings challenges, but also a special atmosphere.

"I think it's the right place for theater and that theater performances are not like they are in theaters, in halls, but that they have their own quality and that the audience enjoys the performance, which is what we saw tonight," Rakočević emphasized, adding that the performance does not lose its relevance or value because there is a pattern that repeats itself among our people.

"And when I say our people, I mean Montenegrins and Croats and other peoples, there is a pattern in our genetic code, especially in Serbian and Montenegrin. Selenić did write to Serbs, but that pattern repeats itself like some genetic code that we carry with us. It's not a question of what the disagreements are about, they drag on from generation to generation and there is a need to resolve something. I have the impression that the play came out at the right time because I had the feeling that we were ready to face our genetic heritage and free ourselves from it," Rakočević explained.

Vanja Eidus, in the role of Elizabeth, excelled in her portrayal of a British woman in a traditional Serbian family.

"It wasn't difficult, because Selenić had already described everything fantastically in the novel. It was written mostly through diaries and her experience of Serbia and how she felt in a foreign country, which brought her character quite close to me. So, Selenić had already described that, and the dramatization and direction supported it, so it all went very easily in the work. It was intuitively clear to me. We all know each other very well and we work together a lot, but it's always exciting when this play is performed and there's a special feeling," she said.

The creative team, in addition to Mićunović and Đarmati, consists of the set designer Zorana Petrov, costume designer Marija Marković Milojev, composer Nevena Glušica and others Ljiljana Mrkić Popović, in charge of stage speech.

The play features: Miloš Đorđević, Nikola Rakočević, Aleksandar Vučković, Vanja Ejdus, Vanja Milačić, Sena Đorović, Iva Milanović i Nikola Ristanovski.

The play will be performed tonight, starting at 21 pm, and transportation for the audience has been provided from the bus stop at the "Bracera" hotel at 19.45:XNUMX pm.