I've been quite unable to express my feelings about this entire "presidential elections" game. It's not that I haven't thought about it; it's like I got confused by the theatrical atmosphere which accompanied the campaign and the elections, for I expected it would be something very serious since it shapes my life and the lives of my people to a large extent. Instead, they put a real funny show on. Or sad. It depends on what you expect from life and what you think "the respected gentlemen from the top" can offer to you. Having seen the outcome of the elections, I'll stick to the sad version for a while now, if you don't mind.
I'm not creating this link between politics and theatre for nothing. This morning, I came across the column which tells about an extremely brave reaction to the Serbian politics of the past 10 years, and the connection between politics and theatre cannot be any closer. The column is written by a freelance journalist, Nenad Šebek, and I took some time off work to translate it into English. I think it was worth it. It goes like this:
The play - Zoran Đinđić
"To the show 'Zoran Đinđić' please don’t go wearing a suit and a tie. It’s
hardly practical. Wear something casual, old, patched. Something over which one
can put bandages and plaster; something you won’t be sorry vomiting all over if
necessary. Because it is worthwhile preparing yourself to being hurt, to feeling
pain and shame, bitterness and anger, shedding tears, or even hearing yourself
laugh. If you fail at feeling all of these, then it means that you have an integrated
Nazis-tic armour around your body, in which case you should leave after 10
minutes for you’re wasting your time and taking the place of somebody who would
like to be sitting there, in the Atelje 212 theatre, watching the play - 'Zoran
Đinđić'.
When my
friend offered me the premier tickets, at first I frowned, since it is impolite
to say no; yet there’s been a while since I’ve stopped believing in the
political theatre stage, especially in our country. A long time ago, we
relocated into the real life everything which should belong to the world of the
theatre only. I asked: “Who wrote the play?” Nobody. Hmmm… Based on
conversations, authors project, experimental theatre? Ugh, each worse than the
other. Still, politeness made me accept the tickets.
Fortunately.
And so, almost a week after, I’m still wondering what was it that I saw on the
stage of the Atelje 212 theatre. It certainly was not a traditional play.
Political pamphlet?
Experiment? Avant-garde? Something directed in a hurry?
You know
what, dear readers? It is entirely irrelevant which form Oliver
Frljić & Co. chose for the play 'Zoran Đinđić'. At these times, when the form largely dominates the
essence, so refreshing was it to finally see the accumulation of essence in a
play. And the essence is that our society
hasn’t faced the past and the play explicitly says it to all those who have the
capacity to see it and hear it. It hasn’t faced it; for, if it had, Serbia
would not be asking itself after May 20th whether Ivica would change
his mind and divorce Boris in order to marry Toma. If we’d had, both Ivica and
Toma would have barely passed the census this time.
I’ll stop
discussing the political shift in the Andrićev
venac Street and its consequences in the Nemanjina Street, for these days you
will be overwhelmed with the opinions on such matters by some Johns, Smiths and
the likes. I won’t draw parallels with Britain and Germany, where the leader of
the party which lost the election would normally resign from that position. If
they don’t do it in Greece, why should we try to be better than the Hellenic
people? Therefore, I’ll continue speaking about the play 'Zoran Đinđić', for I believe it is very significant, in particular
after such outcome of the presidential elections.
Clichés such
as “the play divided the audience in two” dominated the premiere overviews and reports
in the newspapers. I dislike clichés, even if they state the obvious, but, on
top of it, in this case it is also incorrect. This play did not divide the
audience; the audience, being a metaphor for Serbia, divided itself even before
it stepped into the theatre. And got hackneyed. A long time
ago. Divided into those who yell “Toma, you’re
a true Serb!” and those who find the fact that he is Serbian irrelevant in
itself.
Serbia is
divided into those who believe we are a heavenly people and those who think we
are bad people. Into those who find loss the greatest victory and those to whom
victory is the greatest loss. Into those who use the idea of Srebrenica to punish
themselves by whipping the people and those who ask: “What Srebrenica?” Into
those who weep for Kosovo and those who’ve never trod on that soil. Into the
refugees and those who find it disgusting that their Belgrade got “overcrowded
by pitiful souls”. Into those who are sorry that October 6th never
happened and those who are sorry October 5th did happen.
The play 'Zoran
Đinđić' is significant because it dares throw this truth straight into
your faces. And not only that. It aslo throws into your faces the truths we
would like to forget, if we haven’t done that already. It’s not only the stage
that is illuminated; the half of the audience is illuminated as well, so we can
face one another in the audience. And the actors see us as well. Which is very
important, since the play opens with a loud 'j’accuse', directed at everybody
in the audience. What is even more painful, the accusations are well deserved. I
don’t believe in the collective guilt, I’ve never had; thus, every message that
Frljić & Co. screamed in my face, I took very personally. I’m not asking
other audience members (or
readers) to share my opinion, for the essence of democracy indeed lies in
forming one’s own.
As a
citizen of Belgrade, I feel ashamed that the play was directed by a Croatian
(as Frljić was described by Bane Trifunović
in a preamble to the play). To make this clear, I would feel exactly the same even
if Frljić were Danish, Turkish, Japanese... My shame is caused by the sad fact
that it took somebody else to come visit us in our country and say it all to
our faces. To avoid any misunderstanding, Mr. Frljić, I thank you for having
done that.
Quite
contrary indeed, I am very happy that my Belgrade friends invited Oliver Frljić
to perform the play. Honestly speaking, in 2012, something like that would
never happen neither in Zagreb, nor Sarajevo, not even in Copenhagen, Ancara,
Tokyo... (how much I’d love the world to negate my words!). And not only did
they invite him, but they also stood by him, despite all pressures. And
pressures were present from all sides, but Frljić craftily transformed them into
an amazing ending of the play, in which the actors read „the excerpts from
reports about every single moment in the play, including the conversations
between Frljić and the manager of the Atelje 212 theatre Kokan Mladenović, that
the Security Information Agency submitted. The reports were about which actor
left the stage and which remained on it“.
No,
of course that the Security Information Agency did not waste their working
hours and financial resources on such trifles, although in a country which Nušić,
Domanović and Kovačević depicted in such great detail, sometimes disturbingly,
and often satirically, it would not have been a great surprise. There are more „rats“
in our country than the Agencies can normally note down and deal with. And that
is what the play is all about. It also speaks cruelly about the institution
which enjoys the highest respect among the Serbs- the Orthodox Church. The play
director hangs Kalashnikov around the necks of bishops and priests, and puts
guns into their hands. He mercilessly brings the ex-president, Vojislav Koštunica, before the „theatre court“, re-reads the
speech of the bishop Amfilohije which he delivered next to the dead body of
Zoran Đinđić to all those who’ve forgotten it. None of it sounds pleasant to the
actors, and none of it will sound pleasant to you.
I am deeply convinced that it didn’t sound pleasant
to the director of the play either, but somebody had to say it all.
Congratulations for having done that.
Because of it all, go ahead and watch it. Get prepared
to feel pain, misery and shame. Those are the feelings that are awaiting in the
days which are to come."
The original text in Serbian can be found here:
http://www.mondo.rs/s245482/Kolumne/Kolumne/Nenad_Sebek_/Predstava_-__Zoran_Djindjic.html
