Bitef

■j UTTLS THEATRE „DUSKÓ RADOViC" ¡

Mattias Andersson TRKAČ

Stevan Bodroža

Vesna Stanišić

Marko Kesić

Dejan Pantelić

Costume Design:

Vedran Vučić

Montage of the Video material:

Lazar Bodroža i Nina Zeljković

Milutin Milosevic, Nataša Marković, Vladica Milosavljević, Dušica Sinobad, Jovo Maksić, Bojan Lazarov

THE RUNNER THROUGH ABSURDITY When in Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett laid bare the grim nothingness of the world in which man cannot find meaning and when he foretold the twilight of human-centered self-importance, the public was shocked. No less shocking was monologuizing musicianship of petty bourgeois in the The Bald Soprano by Eugene lonesco, who are trying to dredge from their memory the lost feeling of their own existence. The public sharply disapproved. It condemned the new drama. Very few viewers nevertheless tried to make out traits of their own reality in this anathemized monster, while majority very lightly delegated it to a treasury of art for art's sake fantasies. imm The feeling ofthe absurd today, half a century after the appearance of Beckett's and ИяЯ lonesco's plays, is a feeling almost universally shared by all humanity. The absurd has ЯЕ” annulled all cultural, civilizational, political, social and psychological differences on вшии Ш the planet and united the world. It has become a bitter part of the human experi- ВН tcJnß ence, equally present in the life ofthe young and the old. Ййш Contemporary European theatre is concerned with the absurd once again. Numer- IBM ous works have appeared on this topic. For all new authors, Beckett and lonesco, as Jpjr L well as all writers of modernity, are a classic example and a great tradition. However, the absurd for them is also a poetic ornament, a motive, a metaphor, a real life situa- |î tion, a sign ofthe times and a destructive force. How intimidating the consequences i; t oftheabsurdaretoday,canbeseenin7?ie/?unner,aplaybySwedishwriterMattias |5 'L' Andersson, in which the victims are the young, almost children. ; 'Щ| E ,Йк ¿Я This play deals with young people who are into sport because in it they seek plea- Tj ■ :Ц j sure, shelter and salvation from the life governed by violence, sex and drugs. Alas, I the main character of this play, an 800 meter runner, gets defeated in the end, just агщ 'BL ЁЙШш like everyone else. Violence and destruction triumph in their lives. Lonely and lost, | щШ they float on the surface of evil times. We live in a world of psychopaths - this is Andersson's conclusion. People don't love each other; they merely hurt each other. Love is a brief dream when we go out on a Friday evening... What remains is merely a hope to go unimaginable, blue and still j and quiet sea. It is half way between life and death... 0Щ The Runner is a story about "a hollow period" of adolescence. The heroes of this play have reached the most agonizing and the most tragic period of life, of which grown- * /•'’ ups often reminiscence with affection, since their selective memory and ample í rafe, < JêÊ quantities of inaccurate and hypocritical nostalgia allow them to do so. I have al- fl шй? ways wondered, how come that people are so benevolently sentimental about their Я jjmt memories of adolescence? Is there anything in the least mellowing or pleasant to jt think about a period of life during which you wake up every morning with questions Æ jr Á Ш such as: who am I? am I the ugliest? do real friends exist or will I stay alone my whole . Ш : ÜM ~г