On Monday, February 10th the first general strike of actors in the history of Serbia will begin. It will last seven days, until February 17.
The acting ensembles of the Belgrade theaters - the National Theater in Belgrade, the Atelje 212 Theater, the Belgrade Drama Theater, the Boško Buha Theater, the Duško Radović Small Theater, the Terazije Theater, the Yugoslav Drama Theater and the Drama of the Serbian National Theater from Novi Sad, the employees of the Youth Theater, Novi Sad, the majority of the collective of the Novi Sad Theater/Újvidéki Színház, the ensemble of the National Theater are on strike Sombor and the National Theater 'Toša Jovanović' in Zrenjanin".
Rules
During that time, the actors of the aforementioned theaters in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Sombor and Zrenjanin will not play in existing plays or prepare new ones, but will therefore, as the law requires, be in the theater buildings.
With their presence, they will in no way interfere with the work of colleagues who are not on strike and are performing their jobs.
They will not make individual statements, only joint announcements.
National Theatre
During the five days from the announcement of the strike to its beginning, which is the legal deadline for negotiations with the employer (theatre management), meetings were held on the demands of the strikers.
For example, at the National Theater in Belgrade, it was concluded that the management can influence only one request, and that all others refer to the Government of Serbia and that the management will forward them.
That one concerns the improvement of working conditions, and an agreement was reached on that, especially since the actors of the National Theater have no major objections regarding that issue.
The other requests primarily relate to the increase in the budget for culture, now 0,67% is the lowest in the region, and other systemic changes, which will have to be decided by the future Government.
Changes in repertoire
On Friday, two days before the start of the strike, the theaters did not change their repertoire or write that they were on strike on their websites.
The media only received a notification from the Madlenianum Theater and Opera about the new dates of performances planned for next week. This theater is not on strike, but, as they stated, it supports the actors.
History
The statement of playwright Professor Nebojsa Romčević to "Danas" is interesting that the history of theater remembers general strikes in situations before tectonic social upheavals and the collapse of entire regimes.
"In France in 1968, at the height of the political crisis, most Parisian theaters stopped working, in the USSR, on the eve of the August Coup, a significant number of theaters stopped working due to political reprisals; In the USA, during the Vietnam War, theaters such as The Living Theater and The Public Theater played a huge role, becoming one of the cornerstones of the modern idea of engaged theater. England (1978), during the 'Winter of Discontent' theaters shut down to support the trade union struggle; Romania, 1989, before the fall of Ceausescu, Egypt, 2011, within the framework of resistance to the Mubarak dictatorship and the Arab Spring," Nebojša Romčević said, concluding that a knowledgeable eye can find many parallels with our situation.
