Premiere of the play "The Boar Hunt", based on the text Maria Sarap and directed Natasha Poplavska, will be held on Saturday, July 19, as part of the "Skopje Summer" festival. This performance is the result of an international co-production signed by the City Theater from Podgorica, the Macedonian National Theater and the Association for the Development of Arts and Cultural Cooperation "Art Media" from Skopje.
"I am extremely proud that the Podgorica City Theatre, together with the Macedonian National Theatre and the 'Art Media' association from Skopje, will present to the audience a powerful and authentic dramatic text by Marija Sarap, directed by Nataša Poplavska. This international co-production is more than an artistic premiere - it is proof that theatre can and must be a bridge that connects different cultures, stories and emotions," said Sandra Vujović, director of the Podgorica City Theatre.
The voice of women from the margins
The play's text is written by Montenegrin author Marija Sarap, and focuses on the experience of a woman in the Balkans: a woman who is marginalized and excluded because she does not fit into the established social norms of mother and wife. Sarap states that the play was created as a sublimation of two earlier texts - "Plan B" and "Boar Hunt".
"We conceal and expose ourselves through violence, depending on the pain that carries and haunts us. Confronting fear is a special dimension of beauty and ugliness from which one can die without a scream, remain frozen in the tempo of other people's dimensions, and go completely crazy," Sarap writes in the explication.
She emphasizes that the writer's task is to "lick the wounds by digging up the anxieties of family heritage, tears, imposed patterns and other trigger states". "Who will tell us all that we have the right to self? A cathartic state is not a goal, but part of the process I strive for... This is all of us. We chase our demons. Pigs. Wild boars. We fix the irreparable or finally understand that there is still time", concludes Sarap.
Cast and director's stamp
The roles in the play are played by: Vukan Pejović i Djordje Tatić from Montenegro, and Ana Stojanovska, Iskra Vetirova i Mina Jelusic Jerinic from North Macedonia. The direction, set design, costume design and music selection are by Nataša Poplavska.
“Cultural cooperation is the key to the exchange of knowledge, ideas and experiences between artists and is always a welcome refreshment and a new challenge,” says actor Vukan Pejović. He emphasizes that working on the play was challenging and demanding, because it is a dramatization of someone’s life. “That carries a huge responsibility – to tell that story authentically and accurately, hoping to touch on universal themes that affect us all. I believe that theater still has the power to make us imagine, evoke emotion and remind us of what is warm, human, essential and imperfect,” emphasizes Pejović.
After the international premiere in Skopje, the play will be performed in front of a Podgorica audience in the fall, thus completing the first cycle of this significant regional co-production that has the ambition to live and travel - through festivals, borders and social classes.
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