STERIJINO POZORJE FESTIVAL 2015 - Novi Sad, Serbia -
Centre for Cultural Decontamination Belgrade -
IBSEN’S ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE AS A BRECHT’S DIDACTIC PLAY / IBZENOV NEPRIJATELJ NARODA KAO BREHTOV POUČNI KOMAD
Author & Director Zlatko Paković
Zlatko Paković analysed Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People through a prism of Brecht’s didactic plays in a desire to make a parallel between Brecht’s and Ibsen’s activism and to put them in the context of the contemporary Serbian society. In this theatrical experiment, the focus is on the finale of Ibsen’s play, that is, on the consequences to be borne by the hero (and his family) when he decides to confront the personal interests of the potentates and the public opinion of capitalist society. The way he conducts the play confirms that Paković knows well both the concept of Ibsen, as the most important representative of the critical civic theatre, and the concept of Brecht, as a critic of the civic theatre. The show encourages the audience to think about their society and how much they personally belong to the neoliberal majority in their everyday lives. The analysis of Ibsen’s work ends with the question of what has happened to the rebel and his family, and how they can survive deprived of livelihood. Here we come to a parallel with the lives of those who find it hard to cope with the challenges of the Serbian transitional society. However, the show does not end in dark tones but suggests that there is a way out of trouble and that we are the ones we have been waiting for to solve our problems. Sterijino pozorje has always had an ear for successfully realised theatrical experiments. This lecture-performance, a theatre form that is more and more present in the European theatre, continues the positive tradition of the Festival.
