What is behind gestures, images and words?

SON, MOTHER AND FATHER SITTING AT THE TABLE AND FOR A LONG TIME YOU ARE SILENT

Drama by Ivor Martinić Shipping Costs, mother and father sit at the table and are silent for a long time is a chamber piece in which the fantastical context - preparation for the end of the world in a potential nuclear war - is used as the initial capsule that detonates hidden family conflicts and exposes the low truths about the relationship between aging parents and adult children in a modern, self-centered, consumer society. Destroying the ideal of a dedicated and selfless parent, Martinić points out that parents do not love all their children equally. On the contrary, they prefer children who are physically closer to them, even if they are unsuccessful, than those who are successful but far away. Furthermore, parents do not raise children to raise a new life but to fill a void in their own lives. Martinić does not remain indebted to the children either: personal successes and failures are just different methods to seek parental attention or to injure the parent. Also, adult children try to switch roles with their parents and take care of them by controlling their lives. After all, grown children fear that their parents will live forever and at the same time are horrified to learn that their parents are irretrievably gone. The writer sees this ambivalent relationship both from the point of view of the children and from the point of view of the parents, but it also allows us to look at the whole problem from the side, as "objective" observers, and to ask ourselves the question where is the border between love and hate in family relationships.

Director Aleksandar Švabić knows that in directing a piece like this, the main task of the director is for the actors to understand the roles and build relationships between the characters. In order to make the stage situation as tense as possible, the director and set designer Matija Blašković created a cramped, hyper-realistic kitchen in which the actors almost touch each other during their movements, which increases the stage tension. There is an empty space around the detailed and compact kitchen, which represents all the other spaces (garden, attic, outside world). That "collision" between hyperrealism and imagined space gives the performance a dose of wonder.

The actors found a good balance between camera verism and the metaphor of the terrifying outside world. Doris Šarić Kukuljica excelled in the role of the mother. Thanks to flawless articulation and a very expressive face and movement, this actress showed us that in real life selfishness and vulnerability are not mutually exclusive, but that they are different faces of the same personality. Sreten Mokrović in the role of father was a very good acting support for Doris. He plays a deheroized father - an ordinary man from the people who laughs at stupid jokes, doesn't understand his perfect son very well, and is more of a nuisance than a help to his wife, whether it's about the garden or the kitchen. Luka Knez plays a successful businessman who at heart remains a boy eager for parental attention. We see the hunger for love in the concentrated, staring boyish gaze that contrasts with the gestures of the grown-up, confident man. Petra Svrtan plays the good daughter, who is supposedly an independent emancipated woman, but is basically resigned to the knowledge that parents prefer sons to daughters. Overall, Shipping Costs, mother and father sit at the table and are silent for a long time it is a good chamber performance that should be seen, and will especially appeal to those who like "classic" dramatic theater.

photo: Jelena Janković

BOOT LANGUAGE

Everyone who loves engaged theater eagerly awaits every new play by Borut Šeparović. The theme of the play Shoe tongue is the fate of top football players in the era of extreme commercialization of sports. Many boys dream of becoming football players, and many families invest time and money to develop their son's football gift as much as possible, in the hope that the child will play in famous football teams and quickly earn a lot of money. The truth about the life of a football player is, of course, much harsher. Šeparović follows the fate of the young footballer and his family from the moment he enters the big German team. However, the characters in this play are not classic dramatic ones, but rather a post-dramatic structure inspired by documentary material (play text Ivan Ergić, ex-football player, playwright Filip Grujić). Directors and playwrights point out the damage commercialization does to top sports and how large sums of money wreak havoc in the minds and lives of the ordinary world, accustomed to struggling to make ends meet. Borut Šeparović uses theatrical means to analyze the relationship of big capital to modern sports, the exploitation of football players and the dehumanization of players, which necessarily leads to depression. That is why the characters in this play are not classic dramatic characters, but typical representations of a Balkan father, a folk singer mother, an insensitive coach, a psychiatrist, a doctor... while the main character, a shy young man, is football player Damir Polovina (played subtly, with measure and consideration according to the director's concept by Bernard Tomić), a kind of football everyman which reflects the social types united by the greed of surveillance capitalism. The life of a modern and popular football player is also the subject of media interest, and the boy is constantly followed by the club, fans and family. That's why Borut Šeparović includes a video in the performance - the entire performance is broadcast on one large and several smaller flat screens that simulate screens. They are the background against which we view scenes from the scene and/or video games of football players enlarged, just as in stadiums there are large screens on which we can see important details from the game, or watch a video of a football player with a TV camera while he is getting ready for a game, or follow his conversation by video call with his mother or girlfriend. With this procedure, the director allows us to see the facial expressions of the actors greatly enlarged, but also the relationship of the characters to their media appearances. Bearing in mind that football is basically a game, Borut Šeparović introduces a dance in the performance, the choreography of which was created from the movements of football players during matches and during training sessions (co-operator for stage movement is Tamara Despot). Dance scenes are frequent in the first part of the play, and together with the music and video, they give a strong adrenaline effect that simulates excitement on the field, or on the contrary creates a feeling of pressure and monotony of long, hard training that top athletes are dedicated to every day.

In the play, there are a number of effective scenes in which the attitude towards football in the modern world is commented on by means of acting. One of those scenes is bringing in the microphone, where each microphone represents one request placed before the player. There is a witty scene in which the actors (Ivan Pašalić and Toma Medvešek) who play "surgeons" pantomime a long and thorough washing of their hands before the operation, while at the same time they talk with undisguised jealousy about the earnings of the young man they are to operate on. The scene in which the turbofolk singer (Anđela Ramljak), who is accused of sponsoring her, proves to the football players that they are also sponsors because they meet the expectations of their sponsors and receive money from them for that. The characters of the father and mother are excellently placed. Rakan Rushaidat played the father in an almost caricature way, "taking off" the movements of a stubborn, but essentially naive and inexperienced little man in the encounter with the so-called big world. Lucija Šerbedžija plays the mother. Her approach is less caricatured, but that's why she very finely portrays the passive aggression of the patriarchal woman and the great need to keep her men close to her and not allow the girl (Nikolina Prkačin) to have any influence. The tongue of the boot (at least as shown on the poster) is red and is associated with the female genital organ. Soccer culture is ultimately masculine, and young soccer players, as the ideals of that culture, have been transformed into modern gladiators.

photo: Jelena Janković

JUST THE END OF THE WORLD

Only the end of the world is a piece by Jean-Luc Lagars that Jovan Ćirilov translated here as The very end of the world published by the Center for New Theater and Play (CENPI). That one more letter in the title of ZKM's play essentially changes the meaning and gives the title a more ironic tone (translation by Zlatko Wurzberg). When we talk about director Matthias Ferlin's play, this change makes sense, and here's why. The theme of Lagars's play is the arrival/return of the "lost" son. This biblical story-metaphor is put into a modern context. The prodigal son does not tell his family that he is terminally ill. The silence indicates that the disease is "shameful", and the fact that everything is happening at the end of the 20th century leads us to conclude that it is AIDS. On the other hand, the family is not really looking forward to the son because there is some uneasiness about him. Bearing in mind this and the previous knowledge, we can assume that the family does not like their son because he is homosexual, but does not want to tell him openly, although he cannot hide his discomfort. So, it is a question of double silence, typical of Ibsen's plays, for example You have. However, Lagars does not create an Ibsenian dramatic plot, but observes the whole case from the point of view of language. Lagars' text is a complicated tangle of words that arise in a network of concealment of the true meaning: what is meant but not said, what is said but serves to hide thoughts, what one person thinks the other thinks, or that the other said, what is kept silent... The tempo-rhythm of the arrangement of words is as important as the meaning, and in its essence the text is equally poetic, dramatic and narrative.

Bearing in mind the ambiguity of the piece (it is not even clear whether what the writer writes is really happening or it is the delirium of a sick person), the director Matthias Ferlin decided not to punctuate this not-so-short piece, but to play it integrally, so that the sensitive mix of tempo-rhythm would not be disturbed. He focused on carefully building the tempo-rhythm of the play and asking the question what kind of space is it, what kind of physical action provokes that flood of words on the stage and who is saying those words to whom. The entire space and the characters in it seem like some sort of distorted, dreamlike representation of ordinary urban life. The scenography (set designers Mauricio Ferlin and Josip Kresović) looks as if someone arranged pictures from an old botanical atlas on the floor. Objects taken out of context move around that space - a large, blue pulpit, a bunch of black plastic chairs, tables... The characters seem to be doing the usual actions that would be done in a household - arranging the chairs for a family lunch, setting the table, doing a hobby... With the fact that these actions taken out of context seem silly and reveal that in everyday life, physical action is used to cover up the true meaning of what is said. The actors speak the text seemingly coldly and flatly, but in essence they carefully build the rhythm with details and give clues about the characters they play and their mutual relationships. Of course, this game between audience and performer can be a lot of fun if you're ready for it, but also exhausting and irritating if you didn't expect it or simply expect the director and actors to give you clear guidelines for interpreting the play.

This one ShowCase showed that ZKM makes stylistically very different performances that ask the viewer to build a new viewing strategy every time.

Excuse

In "Vremen" number 1786 of March 27 of this year, in the text of Marina Milivojević Mađarev "To play or not to play, the question is now" several unintentional errors occurred. In the subtitle, the writer Đorđe Kosić is signed as the director. Director Olja Đorđević was once signed as Anđelka Nikolić, and the second time as Olivera Đorđević. The editors and the author apologize to Đorđe Kosić, Olja Đorđević, Anđelka Nikolić, as well as to the readers.