Cooling of a human being

Transformation is one of the most famous stories Franz Kafka and tells about the unfortunate clerk Gregor Samsa who woke up one morning like a bug. There are at least two reasons why this fantastic story should not be done in the theater. The first and basic problem is how an actor will play a bug for an hour or so - Gregor Samsa says he looks like a bug, but he thinks like a human being all the way. Then there is the question of what that transformation represents - while reading the story, you can imagine the whole event one way or another, but when you see the actual actors, they have to find a way to convince you of the truth of what they are playing.

The text of the play (written and directed by Marko Torlaković) has at least three levels that intersect and give meaning to the play. The first level is the story of Gregor Samsa, which the play basically follows. The second level is the drama of an average employee in a Serbian private company who works exhaustingly and almost disintegrates, and maybe even turns into a bug, from a large amount of stress and fatigue. The third level of the story is the confession of one Marko (both the director and the main actor are called Marko) about his personal life experience and relationship with his father and primary family. This part of the story intertwines with Franz Kafka's famous letter to his father. By crossing all these lines of performances Transformation becomes at the same time a theatrical adaptation of the famous short story in which a man becomes a bug and a very personal story of the artist (Franz Kafka, Marko Torlaković the director and adapter and perhaps Marko Pavlovski who plays Gregor Samsa) about spiritual transformation through the creation of a work of art. What in all this is the truth of life, and what is fiction, is a secondary question, because a consequent dramaturgical whole has been created, which justifies dealing with I'm transforming.

Through the dramaturgy of the stage space, the director managed to achieve the tension that is necessary for the stage performance of Kafka's work Transformation. The entire stage area is clearly demarcated by a large, old worn-out carpet on which various objects are piled (a bed, a toilet bowl, an old TV set, a lamp...). Claustrophobia is also encouraged by the fact that objects occupy the space both horizontally and vertically (hanging plants, fingernails, etc.). The stage space looks like the apartment of an average, modest Serbian family thrown into a pile, and at the same time all those things in the pile seem ghastly and on stage embody the strong feeling of claustrophobia that is present in the story itself. A space full of obstacles presents a challenge for the actors to move. Every movement must be well thought out and executed precisely so that no one gets hurt and/or the theatrical illusion collapses. Marko Torlaković's music, which is both modern enough to be the music of a contemporary play and contemporary enough to support the stage performance of Kafka's work and emphasize the important dramaturgical points of the play, contributes significantly to the atmosphere of constriction and danger.

Of all the good elements of this play, the actors themselves are the best - Marko Pavlovski (Gregor Samsa), Iva Manojlović (Mother), Stojša Oljačić (Father), Hristina Tatić (Sister) and Sara Pavlović (Manager and Woman in Fur). Each of the five speaks articulately, has clear physical action and a consistent line of character development throughout the play. Marko Pavlovski, who played Gregor Samsa, had the most difficult task. He did not try to play a bug, but through a mask he made during the performance out of water and some kind of powder, he covered his face, losing his human form. He also performed movements with his fingers that, depending on the partner's play, could represent the movements of an agitated bug, but also the most intimate and human touch with another human being. The scenes of illness and gradual disappearance/dying of Gregor Samsa are convincingly played by Marko Pavlovski. An apple is attached to his back with vacuum foil (in the story, Gregor Samsa is hit by an apple that rots and slowly kills his insect body) and the actor plays the pain of the wound so great and constant that he stops communicating with the other actors. Stojša Oljačić played the Father as a simple and cruel Serbian father, but also as a man who, under the mask of Balkan rudeness and cruelty, hides a weak and helpless being who would very much like someone else to solve his problem. Therefore, rudeness towards the son is revealed as an expression of weakness and frustration of the one who should be the pillar and support of the family. The scene when we see the transformation on the Father's face as he listens to his son's letter at the end of the play is especially exciting and beautiful. We see on his face how he begins to listen to his son's confession like a rude man, how rudeness turns into surprise and disbelief and how at the end he is sincerely sorry, but there is nothing more he can do. Iva Manojlović plays Mother through a double game: a game with immersion and a game with distance. Iva plays Mother as a woman who is either under the influence of a large amount of benzedine and therefore unable to react adequately when her husband is violent or, on the other hand, a hyperactive housewife obsessed with the idea that she has to feed her children. When necessary, the actress speaks about her character in the third person in a tone that is distant and critically intoned and then explains the inadequacy of the mother's actions in moments when the father is violent. Hristina Tatić plays the Sister who is willing to support and protect her brother at the beginning. Then, as material troubles and hard physical work begin to wear her down, Hristina vividly portrays how the Sister becomes rude and even cruel to her brother. The young actress plays very well the chilling and dehumanizing of the human being. Sara Pavlović plays two roles, the Manager and the Woman in Fur. She plays the manager in a caricature and that makes sense because in that way she criticizes the system that led to one man turning into a bug. However, the twist comes when the actress plays the Woman in Fur. A woman in fur is a soft-porn image standing over Gregor Samsa's bed. Irina Somborac (costume designer and set designer) did a very good job of wrapping the naked body of the young actress in foil - we have seen too often in the theater how real, human skin denies the character the actress is playing. Here, that foil gave something of artificiality to the body of the actress - soft porn dolls very often appear plastic and artificial on posters - the body of the actress wrapped in vacuum foil acquires that dimension of plastic and artificial. At the same time, Sara plays with maximally reduced means. She stands in the pose of an erotic star with her mouth open and pouty. As she stands motionless like that, she blinks occasionally in the way old plastic dolls with moving eyes do. Since the Woman in Fur is Gregor/Marco's erotic fantasy and his last human connection – his wiggling of fingers in contact with the Woman in Fur becomes a warm tenderness. We see that the hero's fantasy comes to life by the fact that the actress does not stop keeping the same grimace, but on her face we understand that she is listening to what is happening and begins to react, i.e. he feels sorry for Gregor. Then the Woman in Fur turns into a lover who tries in vain to make Gregor/Marko not give up on himself, their love and life. At that point, Marko Torlaković departs from Franz Kafka. Transformation, there is no such human dimension. However, that doesn't bother me at all because the artist has created a well-rounded work in which we, as an audience, are ready to believe completely. This is the greatest value of the new play of the Yugoslav Drama Theater performed on the Studio stage, which is now called the "Jovan Ćirilov" Stage.