Nova drama Fedor Silija Ode of Joy is a vaudeville thematically based on his piece Night watch. The plot of the play Ode of Joy takes place in Belgrade between the two world wars, the day before the wedding of Ivan Radisavljević (played by Đuro Brstina) to the rich heiress Marija Jovanović (Milica Trifunović). The marriage was arranged in order to save Ivan's family from bankruptcy and Maria's from scandal. The trouble is that Ivan loves another, and Maria loves another. Pisac u Go joy deals with the classic dramatic conflict between love and duty to family honor. However, since today few people care about family honor and maiden reputation, the writer created the drama in the form of vaudeville, which is very accurately called in English bedroom farce.
At the time when vaudeville was at its peak (19th century), it was a popular type of comedy about the love and marital affairs and misadventures of members of upper middle and high society. Although marriage fraud was at the core of these pieces, "consummation", that is, marriage fraud, never came, but everything remained on the numerous accidents caused by the attempted fraud. In this way, although it talked about the immorality of civil marriage, vaudeville, in fact, preserved civil morality and was a kind of social safety valve. Because dramatists, according to Aristotelian standards, were made up of the worst kind of plots (a character with a conscious intention tries but fails), vaudevilles had to be very fast and with a lot of gags and puns so that the audience would not notice the pointlessness of the plot. Because it was so conventional and so popular, vaudeville became a genre that was long looked down upon. With the development of structuralist theory, vaudeville began to be looked at with more respect - its connection with the old farce and the theater of the absurd began to be analyzed. Contemporary vaudeville is a "rare beast" and is theatrically interesting because it requires exceptional readiness, speed and agility from the actors. What have we seen of all that in Go joy?
photo: boško đorđević...
Fedor Shili equipped his piece with all the dramaturgical aids characteristic of vaudeville: various types of fraud and blackmail (love and financial), constant chasing, identity confusion, scenes of misunderstandings. There are also the obligatory vaudeville characters; respectable ladies and gentlemen caught with their pants down, a sexy maid, a relative from far away, a foreigner who does not know the language (to allow for language misunderstandings), a provincial, a doctor, alcoholics and madmen... The writer "spiced up" the play with special additions. First of all, it is a clearly expressed contempt for people who do not have to work and live luxuriously and who do not understand, and somewhat despise, those who have to earn money. The average theater audience will surely like this because our society has become class stratified and antagonized. Then, at the end of the play, as in a classic comedy, love triumphs over selfishness and the play has a happy ending. The writer's indisputable preoccupation with youth and love and the repeatedly played bars from Beethoven Ode to joy (anthem of the European Union) give the piece and show, in modern Serbia, an aura of mad rebellion against a world where money is the only god. But don't expect from Ode to joy some serious social criticism because it is not the main goal of the play, but rather a dramaturgical spice (as in a sweet and spicy dish) that should encourage us to watch this contemporary vaudeville with greater enjoyment.
The director and one of the main actors in the play is Gordan Kicic. All the actors are good, led by Kicic. Kicic is a good comedian, and here he showed an enviable physical fitness, thanks to which he was really good in all those powerful runs, jumps, leaps and falls that must be in vaudeville. Milica Mihailović plays the mother with the assurance of a first-class dramatic actress, slightly ironizing the character of a fine lady greedy for money. Đuro Brstina plays Ivan as a naïve and his transformation into a seducer is funny. Marija Liješević, as the Maid, walks and acts like a wind-up doll. Ivan Mihailović plays the swindler Dragomir as a persuasion of "evil" characters from soap operas. Tamara Dragičević parodied the character of the doctor. Milica Trifunović, who plays Maria, a rich heiress, and Stefan Bundalo, who plays Čačan Rajko Dimitrijević, the alias of the Spanish ambassador, had the most difficult acting tasks. The challenge with their characters is that Milica has to play a woman who is constantly drunk and Stefan a madman. Both were on the verge of the grotesque, but at the premiere they successfully avoided unnecessary and vulgar exaggeration.
Gordan Kicic, as the director, led his acting ensemble very well - the play accelerates more and more as we go from beginning to end. In two, maybe three places, there is a slight drop in the rhythm of the game, but we believe that this will be corrected through the game, that the actors will add a few more gags and that the performance will speed up even more, to the delight of the audience. What is important and what gives us hope for the longevity of the play is that the director is at the same time an actor in the play, that he will surely take care of his "child", that the actors are obviously having a lot of fun while playing and that their joy of playing is contagious to the audience. They need a little more concentration, not to laugh at their own stunts, but to focus on us in the audience and, of course, not to overdo it, because that happens in vaudeville.
photo: boško đorđević...
The artistic collaborators, set designer Gorčin Stojanović, costume designer Snežana Veljković and composer Ivan Brkljačić, did an excellent job. The scenography allows for quick movements, unhindered running up and down the stairs and running in and out sometimes through one door, sometimes another. The actors in the costumes look elegant, the characters are clearly separated by the color of the costumes, and the cut of the costumes is such that it does not interfere with fast movements. The music punctuates the gags well, and the choreographers Milan and Nebojša Gromilić help them to be successfully performed. In the end, it should be pointed out that vaudeville shows (both old and new) were a regular part of the repertoire of Atelier 212 and that they essentially contributed a lot to the development of what is today called "studio acting". Ode of Joy is a pleasant and entertaining play that can bring cheer to our gloomy times.
