These days, social networks are sharing posts from Sombor about the long line in front of the National Theater there, and because of the play Always the same and it's for performance in May!
The play is not new, it had its premiere in November 2019, so the motive of the people of Sombor to stand and wait for a ticket is not the need to see the latest play of the National Theater. Also, Always the same it lasts six hours, which means that it can't possibly be the first part of an evening out, because when the show ends, all the decent bars are closed. And yet, the people of Sombor stand in line to see her.
"I'm always going"
Always the same was directed by Gorčin Stojanović based on the novel of the same name by Đorđe Lebović. The performance won as many as four awards at the 65th Sterija Theater, including the one for the best performance, and at the 70th Festival of Vojvodina Theaters, it received the Special Award for ensemble performance.
The Sombor Theater describes it as a historiography of Đorđe Lebović's childhood, in which the author talks about his upbringing in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, just before the beginning of the Second World War. With a child's view of life, a distance was established in relation to the horror of the fate of a child who, after the war, was left without his entire family.
Photo: PromoFrom the play "Semper Idem"
Due to the great interest and posts about the line for tickets that spread on the networks, the National Theater in Sombor announced, thanking the audience for their patience, with the information that the tickets for the May performance are sold out.
"All the tickets released at the ticket office and online were sold out in record time. You let us know that you were able to buy them both online and at the Laguna bookstore outside Sombor, but also at the ticket office. Some of you did not make it, we are sorry for that, but we plan to play this show for a long time, so don't worry," the statement said.
Gratitude from the actors of JDP
In Belgrade theaters, the picture is the same: as soon as the monthly schedule is announced, a line forms in front of the theater and tickets for most performances are sold out in a few hours. It's been like that for years. If you don't get in line before, for example, the ticket office of the Theater on Terazije opens, you won't be able to get a ticket for any of their musicals. Do not count on the tapkaros either - their working hours are over in ten minutes.
Photo: Promo/Jovo MarjanovićMilan Marić in "Richard the Second"
There was also a line in front of the ticket office of the Yugoslav Drama Theater this month as soon as the repertoire was announced. The actors, who were in rehearsal, stopped work, bought chocolate bananas, and distributed them to people in line.
"Let's thank them for standing in line," he said on TV Blic Milan Maric because of whom Oedipus and Richard the Second is required to stand in line.
The Sombor and Yugoslav drama theaters, as well as all other theaters in Belgrade, are the latest evidence that the assessment that no one goes to the theater, which is publicly pronounced even by members of parliament, is by no means accurate.
Data from the Statistical Office
After all, according to the data of the Republic Institute of Statistics, in the 2024/25 season, 1.151.424 people watched theater performances in Serbia. That is not small.
According to the same source, in this decade only the 2020/2021 season had few viewers, around 450.000, due to the corona virus pandemic. As soon as the danger passed, everything was back to normal.
In Serbia, there are 37 professional theaters, 47 amateur ones, and 12 children's theaters.
In the 2024/25 theater season, 5540 performances were performed in theaters in Serbia.
The exact number of prime ministers in that season is not known - the Republic Institute of Statistics states only that there were a significant number of them. In 2023, there were 255 prime ministers in Serbia, the year before that there were 240, while in 2021 there were 180 prime ministers.
We all know that in the last season there were probably twice as many as the previous ones, because the Ministry of Culture still hasn't announced the results of the competition for theater activities for last year, and it didn't even announce it this year, and because the City of Belgrade didn't even announce them in the previous two years.
It is obvious that the state has its own needs, and the well-being of the audience and the theater is not among them.
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