Belgrade



Nine Edition of Slavia Theatre Festival in Belgrade, Serbia, a small private theatre festival has opened Serbian actor Mihajlo Janketic, just at the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring, which is for many of us, best time of the year. The festival encourages and gathers authentic theatrical experimental experience and a classical drama theatre lovers at the same time, which is not common to see today, because a sensitive theatre audience in Belgrade either loves experimental theatre or a classical theatre. Even if the festival mainly presents a classical drama, this year it exhibited a slight variety in its selection. The festival has opened Croatian Rugantino Theatre with their performance „ God of Carnage” where the author Jasmina Reza talks about total incapability of adults to understand their children. The drama by now, toured all over the region, and is performed by Rugantino Theatre from Zagreb, owned by the very well known Croatian actor Ivica Vidovic and Serbian actress Gordana Gadzic.

This classical hard tighten structure drama talks about two couples that are getting together to discuss a playground fight of their children. The discussion soon becomes something totally different, and it brings out on the open issues that many couples do not discuss about, but sweep under the carpet in the mist of alcohol and silence. The drama talks about adult and their preoccupation with themselves, also about pathological narcissism and self-absorbed middle class.

The composition of drama enters to the middle with the discussion of couples to end with marriage hellish discussion that perhaps looks like a classical Who is Afraid of Virginia Wolf. This is a bitter comedy about family and dramatical tension in the play is created with a brilliant dialogue that rises no matter of the statical nature of show and it never bores you with a brilliant performances of the crew. Psychological discovering of the characters is wisely done with direct questions, where trivial conversation brings us to a cumulative highlight of the drama. From the very beginning it is the tension that is sensed first. The tension is created with a clear straightforward structure and the type of conversation between characters of unanswered questions and silence. Later on, alcohol steps in and characters get to relax more. The silent tension becomes the explosion of passion and anger that turns in one point to a minor form of violence.

The drama has fantastic rhythm so the elements are very well interactive with first calm then dynamic scenes of chaos and disagreement. “The God of Carnage” performed by Rugantino Theatre from Zagreb, moves along the comic and tragic edges. The scenes are very attractive and bitterly playful and the crew is fantastic of course.


Ironical Tale of the Death of Trotsky

One of the true surprises for the classical drama theatre festival has been a German State Theatre Timisoara based in Romania, with David Ives’ performance “All In The Timing”. How intriguing, considering the Romanian Jonesku tradition, to have German state theatre from Romania, to perform such play? This is the only performance of the Slavia Theatre Festival that truly is contemporary theatre performance.

Here, the young Romanian director Radu Aleksandru Nice is fascinated with radical New York based writer and humor that combines tree different stories into one. This is one of those performances with no beginning or no end, but it sticks to the attention of audience very well. It is a sum of rather grotesque ideas that follow the other, from story to story. Even if it looks like nothing was taken seriously, this is a pretty serious performance. This theatre play reminds me on Woody Allen films because it ripples between characters. The actors are very dynamic and with their brilliant ideas and adventurer solutions, they are pushing the comedy into a different perspective. The language used here is absurd and ironic and story told is parody, especially the third story named The Death of Trotsky, where late Trotsky walks around with the hatchet in his head. The absurd humor of the situations and a perfect inter-textuality were skillfully put together in one. The director combine drama elements with distinctive means of expression, body mime, overdone face expressions to deliver an aesthetic and very ironic message.

This is definitely one radical physical theatre play.


Slavia Theatre,
Svetog Save 16-18 Street
Pozoriste.slavija@sbb.rs
www.pozoristeslavija.co.rs
381 11 2436995
381 11 2445828