Through the program segment KotorArt Theater, the KotorArt International Festival renews its theater program in a new, innovative way from July 24 to 29. The selection included plays by actors/authors: "Nina?" Nina Vujević, “Not Giving Up” Marije Honeymoon, "Final Act" Lucius Barisic, "Sacrificial Goat" Marije Medojevic” and “Bravo for the clown” Mine Peković.
Performances from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia will be performed at different locations: in the Church of St. Duha and Pjaci od cinema in Kotor, and in the monastery complex of St. Nikola in Prčanje.
We spoke with the director and about authentic performances created from the desire to share experiences and enjoy art, which bring a new, exciting theater, about the rejection of the conventional brought about by a new wave, about the actor's struggle for new opportunities and expression of creativity, about a new trend and direction. editor of KotorArt Theater, Boris Liješević.
The plan is to restore the theater program within KotorArt. Can you tell us more about what awaits us in Kotor this summer?
We will try to recreate in a new way the theater program that existed until a few years ago. It will not be the kind of theatrical performances that can be seen at every festival dominated by well-known actors and everywhere sought-after and award-winning performances. We will offer Kotor something completely new, a new trend and direction. In recent years, several plays have been created in the region in which the actor plays himself and his life. He actually takes his own experience as material for the play. And it's not stand-up, it's not psychotherapy, but a very specific new theater that's worth seeing. Those performances are very exciting, because something organic, personal, alive, recognizable, and to the greatest extent possible, authentic emerges from them.
I believe that this is a huge step towards the independence of the actor/author in relation to the means and circumstances that often make it difficult or impossible for the actor to develop. It is a decision for the actor to become his own author and his own theater, by sharing his life with us. It's a brave, creative, innovative process, and those plays testify to a sobering up that says: "My life is interesting enough to be material for the theater." Underneath is the decision for the actor to stop looking for other people's texts and to wait to be invited to some division in order to work and develop. No one can stop you from progressing and working on yourself. Material is all around you. And the most exciting material is in what you are most intimate with - and that is your own life.
An actor who engages in this kind of creation transforms from neglected, marginalized, ignored, into a strong and creative being worthy of praise and admiration, ready for humor at his own expense. At the center is human life, silly and sublime, funny and deep, small and big, ordinary and authentic. It is truly a movement worth noting and talking about. So that they are no longer separate copies, but something that should enter the books. This is exactly what we are trying to do with this Festival.
The performances that will be in Kotor are wonderful, warm, and human. They do not suffer from the gap between the actor and the audience, from misunderstanding, from topics that are sometimes distant to the audience, from the absence of a reason, that is, from the question: why is this being done today? They were born out of the deepest need to share.
That theater does not suffer from conceit and arrogance, from elitism. Here, the actor shares with the audience his experiences, which he translated into the play. And he enjoys it. In some beautiful way, the actor turns his pain into art that we all enjoy afterwards.
As we all have a need to share something with a friend, a priest, a therapist, to gain understanding, these plays that are in the selection are based on that. To share something with the audience. And there are no spectacles, no art, no acting, and no playing of some characters. Those people are playing themselves.
Can it be characterized as a new wave?
Any departure from the conventional, institutional, is in itself a new wave. This wave comes from the fact that today there are a lot of actors who are waiting, and worrying, and getting annoyed, feeling that their time is running out. Even if they are on salary in the theater and are not existentially threatened, they are still waiting for the right opportunity that may never come, they are fighting for roles, for their own development, they are overflowing with creativity and the desire to express it, and no one hears them and no one look. When an actor is not working, he is actually existentially threatened, no matter how financially stable he is. Because the actor's work is his real existence.
So it happened that some smart and brave and creative actors like Minja Peković, Lucija Barišić, Marija Medenica, Mirjana Medojević, Nikolina Vujović, whom we will see this summer as part of the theater program of the KotorArt festival, decided to publicly confess their worries and fears. make a performance out of it, to turn it into an artistic act. And it's so liberating. This also recognizes people who come from other professions. They recognize the human soul and its blinks. And the spectators leave those performances changed, inspired, moved, with softened and warmed hearts. This rarely happens in institutional theater. In big theatrical performances, emotion cannot break through ambitions, self-love, imposition, expectations, ego mania. The theater can't stand it. Performances creak under this weight and fall apart in boredom and lack of life. The theater is looking for a man - vulnerable, weak, miserable. We are all like that, we just hide behind shiny exteriors. Behind the facades of success. And on stage we don't allow our vulnerability to be seen. And the real viewer is looking for truth and honesty. He is actually looking for support for himself and his life. He is looking for someone who also has a hard time, not looking for stars and beauties who are only interested in selling their presence expensively.
Theater is not looking for proud walking successes and empty entertainers of the masses. Television and social networks are full of that. Theater is something else. In the theater, the man in the audience is looking for the man on the stage. And these plays give us that.
Is that concept viable? Are there so many autobiographical plays in the region that four or five are presented every year?
Good question. I would like KotorArt Theater to be an incentive and support for actors to venture or to allow themselves to travel through their microcosm and bring us gems and gifts that are not found in other cosmos, to convince us that every human being is a deep and authentic being. Let this be proof that it is possible to create like this. Let there be support for us to stop waiting for opportunities and look for other people's texts that sometimes we understand and sometimes not, but to speak with our own voice and experience. The audience wants to see a live man. You who are on stage. Your heart, your soul. You who let us into your most hidden corner and share it with us. I hope that the KotorArt theater will make sense. There are already some shows that we have left for next year. And I hope that at least one more will be created by then. We will strongly support this form of creation. Let the actors understand this as an invitation to hang out in Kotor in the coming years.
Each of these projects is signed by women. Is it a festival concept? And does it have anything to do with women's writing?
I didn't think about it. Now you have opened an interesting topic for me. Probably women are more open to sharing and interested in their own content. But, it still has nothing to do with a woman's letter, and even less with the concept. This selection, that is, the KotorArt Theater, rests on the need for the actor to give himself to the audience. Women carry this world anyway, so I guess they are more ready to turn it into something creative. Minja Peković's play "Bravo za Klovna" is fascinating, you shouldn't miss it. The others are also excellent. Those plays have a certain casualness that has disappeared from the theater. An actor comes out and tells us a story about himself. Those plays have something that is no longer found in institutional theaters. What has disappeared due to ambitions, pretensions, concepts, involvement, projections for success, cooking festivals and awards, and what has disappeared is a living, vulnerable man standing in front of you and sharing something with you. That is no more. Or very rarely. Today, he roars into the microphone or some characters are played, and the only thing the actor cares about is completing his character and getting praise. These plays are different, sobering. They return us to the factory settings, they return us to the human being. Someone who is similar to us. And they are forcing theatricality and television out of the theater.
In recent years, several plays have been created in the region in which the actor plays himself and his life. He actually takes his own experience as material for the play. And it's not stand-up, it's not psychotherapy, but a very specific new theater that's worth seeing. Those performances are very exciting, because something organic, personal, alive, recognizable, and to the greatest extent possible, authentic emerges from them. I believe that this is a huge step towards the independence of the actor/author in relation to the means and circumstances that often make it difficult or impossible for the actor to develop. It is a decision for the actor to become his own author and his own theater, by sharing his life with us.
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