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THE VERY END OF THE WORLD

1 LITTLETHEATRE„DUSKO RADOVIC"

THE VERY END OF THE WORLD Jean-Luc Lagarce

Vlatko I lié

Directed by;

Translated by;

Jovan Ćirilov

Set Design;

Siniša llić

Costume Designer:

Jelena Mihajlović

Cast:

Dušica Sinobad, Bojan Lazarov, Jelica Vučinić, Mihailo Lađevac, Snežana Milojević

The Very End of the World after the text written by Jean-Luc Lagarce, is a play of "social contracts", their "unsuccessfulness" which is performed in front of/for the audience. The staging is based on speech mechanisms, behavioral matrices, that are offered as a more powerful motive power than the very motivation of characters. In the classical theatrical sense, the play is elusive, it remains unuttered, in indications or traces, in jerks, while what persists is the social order. The staging of this play is founded on the principles of post-dramatic theatre (Lehmann), primarily of "omitted interpretation", that is "abated semiotics". The centre of the"event"is shifted from the stage into the field of dynamic communicational exchange between the stage and the audience, vision is activated, the spectator is the one who brings the performance to a close, the play demands constant “framing” with one's eyes. The procedure of the team of authors of the play The Very End of the World conveys a serious intention to re-articulate the local theatrical space, primarily to question the dominant 'presentation' model, the ideology of an orderly micro-entity, along with closed social identities. A structure open to reading, disfunctional and inappropriate is offered instead. Vlatko llić THE OBLIVION WE SHALL LONG FOR In his play The Very End of the World Jean-Luc Lagarce presented a most distressing and most tragic apocalyptic picture of modern man. Through a subtle dramatic analysis of a middle-class family, "successor of French kings", and through an analysis of their human and family relations, this great successor of Becket and Camus succeeded in deconstructing classical civil drama by introducing into it elements of modern drama - alienation, absurdity, absence of contact and communication - intensifying to the utmost the feeling of anguish, misery and death... We have in front of our eyes the closest members of a family who are, after many years, during a short encounter, desperately trying to recognize each other and become close again. But they do not know each other any more, they do not love each other, they are complete strangers... In this artificial encounter Lagarce has exposed the entire history and ail myths of the modern world. He carefully selects and varies emotional and intellectual angles Division. Scenes, pictures, moments, silence and words replace one another. Long monologues are followed by shorts dialogues. Lagarce suggests and deepens the feeling of complete loneliness and alienation in the given situation. In this loveless world there is no need for a nuclear, natural or any other disaster brought about from without. Man is decaying from within in fear and in shivers. Without a scream. This Lagarce's imploring prayer, poetical oratory or whisper on his death-bed, miraculously shaped into a great and confessional drama, distressingly echoes throughout the universe. In the end of the drama, he reminds us that life does not pass, but just elapses into oblivion that we shall long for. Milica Novković