Three Barbies, one depression

A performance All good Barbies was based on the novel of the same name by Katarina Mitrović. The novel deals with a generation of girls who grew up with barbies as role models. The author shows us what happens when those former girls reach the age of 30 and face the challenges of a world that is different from the Barbie ideal. A woman in her thirties is expected (and she expects from herself) to have a stable relationship (ideally a marriage and children), to have a stable job, her own income and her own apartment. The life situation of the main character of the novel and the play is, of course, different. On her birthday, she quits her suffocating job. Soon after that, he was also fired for the rented apartment in Belgrade. Without means of living and without an apartment, the main character is forced to return to her mother in Obrenovac at the age of 30. It is important to notice an interesting paradox - the values ​​that were taught to girls through the barbie doll, the adult woman, the main character of the novel and the play, unconsciously adopted. She is not able to live by those standards, and that's why when friends and acquaintances casually inquire about her life, she lies by telling fairy tales about her own success in Belgrade. It is important to point out that she was relatively successful in Belgrade - she was the screenwriter of a series that was very popular in Obrenovac and she was able to live independently from her work. However, she was not successful in the way she imagined success should be. That's why she constantly lied to herself and others, and when she was alone, she felt frustrated and worthless. That feeling of worthlessness weighed on me and pushed me into depression. When we add to this the fact that the heroine constantly mentions her dream from her youth that she will earn a lot of money from writing and that she will have a house with a swimming pool, a car and a young man-Ken, we understand that even at the age of 30 she dreams of an infantile dream of a good barbie. The overall situation - infantile dreams + unsettled life + internal pressure due to the disproportion between what is desired and what is lived led to depression. Depression as a disease shakes the heroine both physically and mentally. The situation is further aggravated by the use of alcohol, sedatives and narcotics.

photo: nata korenovskaia

In the dramatization of Isidore Milosavljević, the structure of classic dramatic dialogues is preserved, in which the narration that starts from the role of the main character is interwoven. However, the characters, except for the main heroine, are not real characters but the experience of others in the main and only heroine. That's why the director Đorđe Nešović did well to build his setting precisely on that fact. The impression that everything happens in the main character's head is underlined in the play by the fact that three actresses (Julija Petković, Aleksandra Arizanović and Nevena Kočović) simultaneously play different aspects of the main character's personality and all the characters she meets. The costumes of the actresses are metaphorical - khaki overalls made of tailor's cuts. Their faces are drawn as if they are getting ready for plastic surgery - as if all three are some kind of unfinished project, and such, objectively, is the identity of the main character. The creation of a believable dramatic representation of the main character's inner world was significantly contributed to by the stage space that was only indicated - a white wall, practical and floor. These three elements, as needed and depending on the lighting, can be the heroine's experience of real space and/or the heroine's inner world. A very important role was also played by sound, i.e. sound design (Marija Balubdžić and Luka Cvetko) and music (Marija Balubdžić). Through the sound, we were reminded of the pressure of different, often contradictory thoughts that the main heroine is obsessed with, and the music evoked different emotional states of the heroine. Watching the play, we really had the impression that we were inside her head. In the second part of the play, the director tried to go one step further - he pulled out some people from the audience who started to "play" guests in the cafe where the heroine got a job as a waitress. It was fun and "stirring", but essentially it neither helped nor detracted from the main intention. During the performance, we really understood and felt what depression looks like from the inside.

The understanding of depression was greatly contributed by three actresses who were similar enough (facial features, costume, hair color, age...) to be able to represent the same person who, at one stage of her life, is going through a difficult internal struggle. At the same time, they were different enough to be able to play both her and her experience of other people. Each of them tried to find their own approach to the character. Aleksandra Arizanović and Julija Petković were somewhat clearer and more specific in their approach and were complementary. Arizanovićka had something warm, gentle and soft in her, while Julija Petković seemed sharper, more determined and with a certain amount of irony and distance towards the character, causing even a mild dose of humor. Nevena Kočović was a little less determined in her approach and moved between the two. To be honest, it wasn't always clear to us which aspect of the heroine's personality was being played by which of these three actresses, but maybe that's not so important because they managed to conjure up the chaos in her head, and in that chaos, of course, it's not always clear which feeling in at which moment they overpower, because the opposite feeling can appear in the next one.

A performance All good Barbies is a theater study that makes us think about how much the system of values ​​that we have adopted who knows when and who knows how, and which we have never seriously and critically considered, fundamentally influences our everyday life. In this regard, perhaps the authors of the play could have been a little stricter towards their heroine, but that would require a different approach (turning towards comedy and absurdity). This would have the effect that we sympathize less with the suffering of the modern depressed woman who does not understand that she will never be a good barbie, because good barbies only exist in the children's room of an obedient girl.