Bitef

adolescents and their everyday life are absent. Identity crisis, desperation over not belonging to a group, martyrdom experienced by those who differ from others, are shown in all their cruelty and mercilessness, imaginable only when reality is portrayed in an almost documentary fashion, as is the case in The Runner. This play is a moving study about human relations within a closed circle of children forced to see each other every day. The characters in The Runnerroam around locker rooms and classrooms of a school as if they have been condemned to one another in a strange Sartrean key. In a highly electrified atmosphere of a school gym class, designed by grown ups and therefore essentially repressive for those for whom it has been designed, cruel relations between those who have their own direction in life and are therefore different and unpopular, and those who "linger around" in corners of "the prison house" of school, prepared to pass their time harassing those whom they strongly dislike, are thus able to surface. The relations between torturers and victims look like a system of facing mirrors which reflect each other and alternate their negative energies, the source of which is somewhere outside this spellbound system, in the homes that keep secrets about family violence or broken marriages. The source of that feeling, which like unfathomable anti-matter lingers in this play, are actually grown ups, their problems and mistakes, passed on like a kind of"genetic deviation"to posterity, forever bestowed with that unwanted and irretrievable "gift". The sole but quite memorable representative ofthat omnipresent but invisible world of grownups is the Mother, a character written so that it soars into poetic spheres of the most villainous female characters in drama literature. This play and this performance do not propose a solution to the problem of violence in schools, but they lay it bare and reveal its roots, its human dimensions. I am deeply convinced that the truth is cathartic and that reaching the truth does constitute a promise of hope. Stevan Bodroza ABOUT THE DIRECTOR Stevan Bodroza was born in Belgrade in 1978. He graduated theatre directing at the Faculty of Drama Arts in Belgrade. He directed plays at the Bitef Theatre, the Belgrade Drama Theatre, the National Theatre in Belgrade, the Little Theatre "Dusko Radovic", the Beton Hala Theatre and the Pinokio Theatre. The most important plays he directed include Fireface by Marius von Mayenburg, Heiner Müller's Medea, RW Fassbinder's Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Jon Fosse's Mother and Child, Edna Mazya's Games in the Backyard, A Tatoo Lesson by Konstantin Kostjenko, Steel Wings by Sanja Domazet and Euripides' lphigenia atAulis. He is a lecturer at the Faculty of Drama Arts in Belgrade and teaches theatre directing. He lives and works in Belgrade. ABOUT THE WRITER Mattias Andersson was born in 1969 and brought up in Gothenburg, Sweden. 1990 - 93 he studied to become a professional actor at the University College of Acting in Gothenburg. 1993 - 97 he worked as an actor at the Васка Teater, Gothenburg, where he played in among others: Peer Gynt, Gisslan, Faust and Mahabharata. Plays directed by himself: 1H And outside is the Sea, the University College of Acting, Gothenburg, 1993 St. John's passion, баска Teater, Gothenburg, 1994 K+M + R + L, Pusterviksteatern, Gothenburg, 1998 Я The stuff that stars are made of, Alvsborgsteatern, Borâs, 1998 Before This, Pusterviksteatern, Gothenburg, 1999 The Runner, Unga Klara, The Stockholm City Theatre, 2000 ЩЩШВр Щ The Weak One, Васка Teater, Gothenburg, 2001 йшШш VK Den offentliga sektorns stilla langtan mot nägot bortom bergen, Fol kteatern, Gothenburg, 2001 \. j Brott, hemtjdnst, straff, pengar, pensionärsmord, The Stockholm City Theatre, 2003 :’'?>< ' i ; Sex, drugs and violence, Unga Klara, The Stockholm City Theatre 2004 : , In a dark and northern place, Васка Teater, Gothenburg, 2005 Level 12, directed by Claes Lundberg at the Gothenburg City Theatre, 1995 , The Return ofthe Invisible man, directed by Ronnie HaWgren, choreography by Björn Elison at Alvsborgsteatern, Boras, 2000 ЙЩЩ Them, directed by Jasenko Selimovic at The Gothenburg City Theatre, 2000 | "| ''ÍÉH Outside my window, directed by Birgitta Englin at The Royal Dramatic Theatre, 2000 WM His plays were performed in Sweden, Germany and Denmark and have been translated into English, German, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Russian, Romanian and Polish. He is currently working as a playwright and a director.