New play by the Podgorica City Theatre "The Woman from Before", directed by Damjan Pejanovic, premiered on Tuesday evening, brought the audience a strong, bold and emotional stage experience - a performance that simultaneously makes the audience laugh and disturb, but also makes them think.
From comedy to almost mini-horror, from intimacy to absurdity, "The Woman from Before" maintains attention, interest, and tension with its dynamics and purity, while the past and present, love, guilt, silence, questioning, dilemmas... Breakage.
Through precise rhythm, carefully constructed scenes, and fantastic acting that relies on measure and accuracy, the play opens up space for emotion and thought, and is definitely a strong experience.
The strong and pronounced gradation, from dramatic action, through emotion, and even a mixture of genres, is set up in such a way as to lead the audience to the very climax and a rounded piece with its striking denouement. It is concluded and rounded, but despite that, it is a richness of the play that leaves room for experience, interpretation and conversation, while vivid impressions are guaranteed.
The play treats a series of important, everyday, and sometimes abstract topics, and all the while gives the viewer the feeling of being on a film set or in front of a cinema screen, but also of witnessing life at the same time - the one that happens, slips, passes, and perhaps is even sensed...
In the gap between the past and the future, through a hole in the stone, time and life, in the imbalance of what is said, promised, left unsaid and forgotten, we are faced with something "from before", not even suspecting what comes after.
Director Damjan Pejanović pointed out that during the process and preparation of the work, they listened to the author of the text, Rolanda Schimmelfenig which thematically, in the broadest possible domain, specifically relies on love, while dealing with the ease of the spoken word and the fact that a promise is free.
"Everything we don't close in the past continues to haunt us until we settle those debts ourselves. We can all find ourselves in court for our spoken words. I think we make promises easily, especially when we swear eternal love. A promise is free, and we rarely, almost never think before we lay all our cards on the table and say 'I'm here and we're going forever and ever,'" said Pejanović.
He assessed that at the end of this play there is no room for hope, everything has already been done, but also said a long time ago, so the only question that remains is whether things are being destroyed in a just manner or not.
Everyone in the cast did a fantastic job, building real characters that inspire trust in the audience and surpassing all expectations. In addition to the authentic director's handwriting, the play undoubtedly rests on the ensemble consisting of: Goran Slavic, Maja Šarenac, Ana Vujošević, Luka Stanković i Marina Pavlovic.
Slavic and Šarenac reflected on the process, which they agreed was valuable to them.
"That it was intense and demanding, yes. That's exactly why it was valuable and significant. It's a different script compared to all the ones we've played so far. During the process, we also dug into ourselves, which is also valuable, and all of that confirmed that an actor can never say 'that's it, I've achieved everything', but that he can always find some new perspectives and recognize something new. This is still a different script and genre to which we had to adapt, so we used some other means, which is desirable for an actor, because he can see what lies within him," said Slavić.
Šarenac confirmed that the work was intense, long, thorough...
"We analyzed and improved everything to the end, we've never worked like this before. The entire process, work and result looks like a good episode of a series on one of the streaming platforms," she pointed out.
Slavic added that everyone defended their characters, but also that they were divided in their thoughts and opinions during the process, which contributed to the end result.
For the young Marina Pavlović, this was her first performance in her hometown, after studying acting in Belgrade. The process, she points out, was beautiful and interesting.
"My role was demanding in the sense that it had a narrative character, and I shouldn't speak in a detached manner. The plot, which does not flow linearly, but is constantly repeated, takes us back to the past, perhaps encouraging us to wonder whether some things that have passed are really past, while telling us a story about love. However, love in this play also has its terrible face and is not the emotion that we describe as the most beautiful and sublime, but is sometimes even terrible," Pavlović revealed, and Šarenac added:
"This is a story about love. We all strive to be consistent, but sometimes we are not."
Speaking about the concept of time, which is quite significant in this work, Šarenac said that time carries a poetic framework.
"Everything is like poetry. It wasn't easy to play repetitive fragments and return to them after we'd already finished that one scene. That's definitely why this is different from anything we've done," she concluded.
Slavic also revealed how he experiences this aspect of the play.
"I experienced the rehearsal and repetition of scenes during the play as another chance that life gives us. It seems to me like an opportunity that you should take advantage of and do something different, but you still do the same thing and end up on the same path you were on. We have a paradox here of time and promises, but also a kind of simulation of life, love, and again promises...", he said.
In addition to the power of words, spoken, given, and left unsaid, Slavić confirmed that love is the foundation of the play, as are family relationships.
"The Woman from Before" at the Podgorica City Theatre brings the audience something different, offering a high-quality and dynamic story, unexpected and rounded. In a time when theatre often seeks form, effect, sometimes spectacle and carnivalization, often political engagement, Pejanović's play actually emphasizes the essence - the story, the man, the word.
She did a great job with the dramaturgy. Stella Miskovic, was responsible for the scenographic solution full of symbolism Nikola Toromanov, He designs insightful and in his own way contemporary and modern costumes. Lina Lekovic, superb music that is practically a work in itself Vjere Nikolic, and stage movement Tamara Vujošević Mandić. He was in charge of 3D animation. Gojko Berkuljan, and the executive producer of the show is Darko Bjelobrkovic.
Bonus video:
