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characteristic of those moonlighting on stage and hoarding money. But "puš'mo ća", as Načinović would put it. At this present day Filumena cracks the following picture: a woman must be a success, or in a hell of a marriage where one can not tell who is the husband and who is the wife. The roles have broken apart with the sexual revolution. How can you be it all? How can we, neurotic, damaged, scarred, live? Filumena tells us how; with love. With persistence. With fighting. With endurance. For what? For love. She is an anti-feminist and that is precisely her revolutionary quality today. She is revolutionary for being a real woman. With all virtues and faults brought to the end. She has the nerve to go to the end in all things, she has the courage to tell her sons in the face who and what she was. And which one of us is so pure to judge her? 1 would not even dream of it. About the Mediterranean: If the Mediterranean is anything, it is the bare essence of life. "And what does not hurt, is not life", Andrić had said. Those pains, those wrinkles, but with a smile on the face and in the soul, that is heroism for me, not on Acropolis, not in the Tower, but in a single home. The Mediterranean simply paints what exists everywhere with stronger colour. 1 simply see it as a hormonal imbalance sometimes, being a Mediterranean man myself. It is not easy, but that is what full living represents. We will at least know we were alive. To me, the Mediterranean is a state of mind, not a geographical area. About Rijeka: Rijeka is Mediterranean as well as central Europe. And it is a fresh connection for me. It si authentic. Every town has an authentic spirit I do not care much for similarities. I like authentic diversity in one place. That is the beauty and fullness of living. Rijeka is a city. But I live two lives here. One is in Rijeka - clean, free, kind, a Rijeka whose soul is, I believe, well bred, A Rijeka where I can breathe my lungs full of air, where I see clean, beautiful, kind faces. But my other life, that lasts much longer, takes place at the Croatian National Theatre "Ivan Zajc". And it is the same in all good theatres: it is like a vortex you step into, you give yourself to it, it sometimes covers you like a wave and then you are drowning, sometimes it lifts you up and then you are flying. That other life is life at 300 degrees Celsius. That is where the inspiration is: in that magic hall where the ghosts of all past characters - Azucena, and Santuzza, and Don Juan, and Aida abide. Rijeka is my baby. From the CNT to Bonavia. And back. It rests me from myself, because I carry my insanity from the theatre back among the people, among civilians, among those not infected by the the-

atre virus; but they like it they are benevolent towards it. I can see it by the way they treat me. Theatre is important here. It is respected. It is not taken for granted. And it is not a small thing. Rijeka was the prettiest to me once when, after rehearsal, i was dragging myself along the Corso and heard Va pensiero, sull'ali dorate. And the Corso was packed. My soul was overflowing. That is a polis. I can not listen to advertisements and speeches, 1 want Va pensiero. I shall remember that forever. JAGOŠ MARKOVIĆ Born in Podgorica 1966. Graduated theatre directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade in 1987 under the guidance of Borjana Prodanović and Svetozar Rapajić. The most significant among forty or so of his productions are: Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Nights Dream and On Three Kings by W, Shakespeare, Tartuffe and Learned Women by J. B. P. Moliere, Euripides' Hecubes, Electra by Euripides-Kiš, M. Krleža's Adam and Eve, Kate Kapuralica by V. Stullio, Skup by M. Držić, Llorca's House ofßernarda Alba, Simovic s Hasanaginica, Decameron - a Day Earlier by Boccaccio-Glovacki, lonesco's Bald Singer. The Telephone Booth after his own text (performed abroad as well). The Wizard ofOz by L F. Baum, The Three Musketeers by A. Dumas and Kipling's Jungle Book. Apart from drama plays, he also directed the opera Cinderella by G, Rossini. He is the laureate of all major theatre awards and recognitions in his homeland, and he has often taken audience awards as well. In the extremely long succession we can accent the Montenegrin Culture Ministry's Award for his contribution to Culture, the Serbian Ministry of Culture Award, the "Sterija" Award, the City of Belgrade Award, the "Bojan Stupica" Award, two best director awards at the Children's Theatre Festival in Kotor, four consecutive best director awards at the Comedy Festival in Jagodina, the contemporary stage expression "Davidoff" Prize, two annual awards of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre... He was chosen best director of the year in 1996 after a theatre critics' survey, and in 2002 he was also given the director of the year title by television viewers. Among his most awarded plays on Mediterranean topics are those created from texts from the Croatian Drama Legacy. Kate Kapuralica won a total of 35 awards while Skup, after many other awards, enthralled the audience at this year's Festival of Small Stages in Rijeka and took most of the prizes.