Ljubomir, Ljuba, Simovic he loved people, he understood man and his mistakes and knew how to translate that into a dramatic form. His poetry is grounded in language his native, Užice region. In his sentences, the dramatic and the poetic were intertwined, opening before us the entire microcosm of human suffering. Based on his plays, some of the most important local drama performances and unforgettable acting performances were created. Generations of theater artists, critics, theater experts grew up on his plays. I myself watched almost every new performance of his plays with great attention. So don't blame me for writing about Ljubomir Ljuba Simović first of all as a playwright - he would, I believe, understand that for every man his own loss is the greatest.
HASSANAGINICA
Ljubomir Simović appeared on the stage with a drama Hasanaginica, when he had several collections of poetry behind him. At the time when this drama was performed - the premiere took place at the National Theater in Belgrade in 1974 (director Želimir Orešković) - important changes had already taken place on the Serbian theater scene. Borislav Mihajlović Mihiz, inspired by a folk epic song Banović Strahinja, he wrote a play of the same name in which, through the suffering of the epic hero and his wife, he talks about how the personal drama of the hero becomes an object of political manipulation. Aleksandar Popović introduced to the stage the language of heroes who live on the periphery of the socialist dream of a better tomorrow (Ljubinko and Desanka, Saber Dimisk, Bora Schneider's development path…). In this context Hasanaginica was both contemporary and separate. Contemporary because, like Mihiz's play, it uses a folk epic poem to talk about the suffering of an individual in political games, and in the speech of the epic heroes, it inserts modern bureaucratic platitudes to show the vanity of the political vocabulary. Special because it returned poetry to drama in a time of absolute dominance of prose. It is through poetry that is based on folk culture that Simović reveals to us the suffering of women in a patriarchal society and the illusion of a man that by demonstrating his power over the weak, he can hide his own weaknesses from himself and the world. In his plays, even the most insignificant characters have their own poetic moment. Thus, the poet sang one of the most beautiful songs about a woman as the driving force of human community at the beginning of the play through the character of the asker. The poet juxtaposes a series of words originating from folk construction with a threefold longer series of derogatory names for women, and then points out:Where a woman whispers,/ there is a smell of bread,/ the pot of beans smells good,/ The mulberries are turning green.,/ The roof turns red under the mulberry trees.!/ Where is the woman?,/ there are also materials and good craftsmen!” I personally like the complementary songs of Hasanaginica and Beg Pintorović about the dark. She "sings" about the existential fear that comes from the dark:You have no idea what's going on.,/ you are not in that circle,/ and that is your head among them/ on the table./ You don't know if your head will hit the stump,/ Will you be with me?, in the sack./ You only know so much.,/ to do that/ in the dark./ The night is coming., and you are waiting/ to hear the verdict./ They don't call you for an interview.,/ and they judge/ about your head.” He talks about darkness as a space where those who spend their lives under social masks can hide: "Only at night can I breathe a sigh of relief!/ This realm is not the sultan's at night,/ the scent of flowers is stronger than his cavalry!/ At night, even Baghdad is not far away., nor India,/ nor people from other times!/ At night I'm not there either., nor Hasanage!/ Is Hasanaga Hasanaga even when he sleeps?/ Is Pintorović Pintorović's mask??/ Everyone in their own bubble,/ We took off our suits., take off your shoes,/ blew out the candle, lay down, went out into the garden,/ and we rest from our faces,/ in the dark..." For Ljubomir Simović, every man is a fragile being, even when he is cruel and mad because of other people's blood that drips from his sleeves for years. We see this at the end of the play, when Hasanaga mourns over his dead wife: "Anything I want, Everything becomes a punishment for me../ When I touch it, as if a snake had touched it… / I approach., she retreats… / Faced with that fear, you lose your will and strength… / That's why there is always war... Tyrant, engine, take the woman… / And it was opened., so that I don't feel ashamed in front of her. "
MIRACLE IN ŠARGAN
In the next drama Miracle in Šargan Thematically, Simović - life on the outskirts of Belgrade - comes close to Aleksandar Popović, but remains rooted in the language of his Užice region. Verses now have the role of a departure and commentary on dramatic situations that were given primarily in prose. He understands the depth of darkness into which the soul of the prostitute Our Lady sank. And here, as in the case of asker, it is used again with the technique of accumulating nouns, but with a completely different intention: "I endured the seasons., soldier,/ heart and lung patients,/ garbage men carrying bins,/ master, Terence, dilettantes,/ I put up with the brakemen., in a clinch,/ Niš, Vranje, Krčedince,/ and in the mass, and individuals!/ I endured lying down., and snow,/ The list would be stacked to the roof.!/ But I can't stand it anymore.!” Equally well, Simović understands the waitress Cmilja, who left the village for the city in search of a better life, got stuck on the outskirts of Belgrade and dreams her small, banal dream of comfort there:While he mixes the cement for the cobblestones,/ I am cooking soup., rinflajš and shnenokle!/ I wash the dishes., and I roll out the dough,/ and he is watching the football championship!/ And when the game is over/ I am ciphering., child in a stroller!/ So I walk all evening with my hair cut,/ by the fountain, before the Executive Council!". In that world, which is stuck in a fungus worse than the one from which he escaped, the phrases uttered from the socialist pulpit sound hollow. That is why the ghosts of past times and rejected values lurk around that world - Captain Manojlo and Private Tanasko. These two soldiers in the seventies (first production in 1975 at Atelier 212, directed by Mira Trailović) were the forerunners of the army of characters inspired by the heroes of the First World War that we will on stage in the XNUMXs, on the eve of the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia. Simović hit upon the essence of the problem of the man of his era, which he metaphorically called the eighth pocket:And the eighth pocket, that's a big mouth!/ It swallows houses., swallows people, swallows heads.” And here again those who are the lowest and rejected in society become the most important - they bring the point of the play. The last scene is dedicated to the meeting of the beggar and the Serbian soldiers. The poet and playwright says: "Until you see a man's wound,/ You don't know who you're dealing with.!/ A man's identity is in the wound.... "
TRAVELING THEATRE
Traveling theater Šopalović, his third play from the mid-1985s (premiered in XNUMX by JDP, directed by Dejan Mijač), will become very important in the XNUMXs, when the calamity of war destruction shakes the country, which was crumbling in blood. Sopalovici are a drama about a theater troupe trying to put on a play in war-torn Užice. Once again, the Serbian language of the Užice region becomes the basis for Simović's wonderful poetic speech, with the fact that this language is also a means of conducting serious aesthetic and ethical discussions. (Simka: A baker and an actor cannot be compared! At least the baker helps us to feed ourselves somehow, and to survive, and the actor… Sofia: Perhaps the actor shows why it is worth feeding and surviving!"). In this connection, the almost Brechtian poem by Filip Trnavac is famous: I will get up.,/ trampled, crushed, oppressed,/ to the iron armies/ with a wooden sword! Those words from this piece will be spoken many times during the nineties, when the question was raised whether the muses should be silent when the cannons roar. That was the response of our theater at the time. The theaters did not stop working neither when the tanks went to the battlefield, nor during the hyperinflation, nor during the months-long protests, nor during the bombings. Sofia's answer and Trnavč's verse were a symbol of the theater that is a resistance to war and political violence.
Unlike these three plays, which do not belong in the theater repertoire, Battle in Kosovo was released as a TV movie in 1989. Simović was not lucky with that film, nor were we all with that time. Despite Simović's attempt to remake the drama, it continued to bear the mark of that time and our wrong choices. After that, Simović did not write any more plays. What a misfortune for Serbian dramaturgy!
From then until his death, Simović lived in a turbulent and dynamic time, and in his books, essays and public appearances, he actively participated in pointing out problems and detours. We miss the poet, playwright, essayist and humanist Ljubomir Simović. We miss a man who found a way to find a grain of humanity even in the worst bully and to understand that he might have been a little bit different, but that: "That's a little much for you., when you don't know it in time, small and large! "
