Socrates canceled

A performance Silencing Socrates was based on the play Cancelling Socrates by the British writer Howard Brenton, which premiered in London in 2022. Using the fashionable term "cancellation" for the trial and murder of Socrates, the author points out the similarity between our age and the age of the oligarchs after the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian wars. Howard Brenton finds similarity in the crisis of democracy and the rise of corrupt, hypocritical and uneducated individuals. Politicians and judges who should be concerned with preserving the essence of democracy are concerned with the form, and the public is looking for quick and easy solutions to complicated problems.

It's a piece. written to recreate the way Socrates, in Plato's writings, conducts a dialogue with his contemporaries. Socrates performs maeutics on his interlocutors - new ideas are born through a series of questions and answers, which lead to new questions. This action leads Socrates' interlocutor to the point where he has to reconsider his starting point. Brenton's drama, due to the author's desire to recreate Socrates' way of conducting dialogue, resembles French conversational dramas (e.g. There will be no Trojan War), but it is closer to us than the mentioned piece by Giradu because it talks about what is important for us today - freedom of thought is being stifled by the usurpers of deceased democratic institutions. Therefore, the translation of the title of the piece Silencing Socrates maybe less "sexy", but more precisely defines the essence of the piece (translator from English is Đorđe Krivokapić).

The fate of Socrates from Plato's dialogues is the starting point for writing a contemporary, problematic play. This is most clearly seen on the example of the other characters. The characters of Socrates' wife Xanthippe and the hetera Aspasia are representatives of two identities of modern women. Xanthippe claims that the meaning of a woman's life is in the family, and Aspasia advocates for women to leave the family circle and engage in society. The author does not deal with the question of what a woman could be other than a woman-mother-housewife or a fighter in the political arena. Xanthippe and Aspasia are the two functions of a woman in a modern world dominated by shallow-minded, self-serving and immoral types without an iota of scruples. The author considers all these different types similar because they want the same thing and therefore suggests that the character of the Athenian citizen who is supposedly concerned about the fate of Socrates and the character of the executioner be played by the same actor.

Director and scenographer Nebojša Bradić placed the play in a stylized stage space consisting of stairs that symbolically represent the court, the theater and the dungeon, but also the ascent to knowledge of Socrates and the fall into ignorance of his fellow citizens. Visually simple, but rich in meanings, the scenography well reflects the spirit of the play, in which the conflict takes place above all on the level of ideas. The costumes of the actors (Marija Vukosavljević Medenica) are a modern commentary on ancient costumes and are completely in the spirit of the piece and the play.

When we talk about the approach to the characters and the action of the piece itself, the director Nebojša Bradić was very considerate of the text, which is his directorial characteristic. However, in the choice of actors, he deviated from Brenton's idea that Socrates is seventy years old. The historical Socrates was really seventy years old at the time of his death. But Brenton's Socrates is a dramatic character who is vital, calm and spiritually strong, and there is nothing in that character to indicate that Socrates is an old man. That's why the director's decision to give the role of Socrates to an actor in full strength, who will be able to match the nervousness that the actors playing the other roles have to show with his calmness. Bojan Dimitrijević plays Socrates as a barefoot, bearded, Christ-like, calm sage. He remains calm and focused while his interlocutors rage because he asks them questions they don't have an answer to or get angry with him because he doesn't want to save himself with a rotten compromise or a jailbreak. His peace comes from the fact that he does not want to provoke the interlocutor, but is focused on the desire to know - the questions he asks others serve to clarify the dilemma for himself. His inner drama, arising from the ultimate decision to seek the truth, is stronger than the external pressures, and that is why he chooses death rather than a lie.

Jugoslav Krajnov plays an Athenian citizen and executioner. Krajnov plays the Athenian citizen as a man of broad gestures and elegant demeanor. We've seen guys like that on TV, it's true in expensive suits, not in a chiton. In the way the executioner plays, we can recognize the raw materials that consider it legitimate to do evil if it is to their benefit. With his facial expression and tone of voice, Krajnov shows the conceit, impudence and simple depravity of a man who justifies what cannot be justified. The citizen and the executioner are the two faces of a modern politician who stifles freedom for personal gain, and Krajnov showed us that very well.

photo: promo

Unlike Krajnov, who plays the typical features of a social character, the actresses Sanja Ristic Krajnov, who plays Socrates' wife, and Jelena Stupljanin, who plays Aspasia, tried to give their characters a more personal note, even though in the play these characters are typical representatives of two opposing viewpoints. Both actresses managed to make the audience understand their points of view and their problems. We understood why it is unfair for a wife to be left alone to raise the children and run the household while her husband fights great battles. Her life's battle is not small, but she does not get any recognition for her effort and is even considered less valuable. Thus, the character of Socrates' wife becomes a kind of ancient fighter for the rights of modern housewives. Jelena Stupljanin believably played the determined and determined Aspasia. On the one hand, it is exciting to watch her resolutely fight for Socrates, and on the other hand, the failure of her and Socrates' fight is a warning - you can be the wisest man or the bravest woman, but if you have no money and political power (which are often one and the same), you have no chance in front of a corrupt court. Neither the director nor the actresses insisted on a personal conflict between his wife Xanthippe and his lover Aspasia. If Aspasia and Xanthippe were made as characters, their entire conflict would necessarily drag the drama towards farce due to marital fraud, and that was by no means the idea of ​​the writer, nor the director.

The quality of the performance was also contributed by the music of Aleksandra Vrebalov and the video work that is broadcast in the background, which made the staging of this conversational drama a performance of modern stage script. Bitef theater is a project Silencing Socrates received an effective chamber performance that corresponds to the questions of a modern man faced with the necessity of defending the right to a sober, critical opinion in a world of constant manipulation.