Bitef

TRADE

Albert Oster meier TRADE Directing: Anja Suša Set and costume design; Marija Kalabić Composer: Vladimir Pejković CAST: Trader 1 IvanTomic Trader 2 Dušan Murid Stage manager: Dejan Popovid Sufleusse: Zorica Popov Belgrade Drama Theatre, seasone 2004/05 Although written for theatre, the structure of Albert Ostermeler's Trade is profoundly poetic. There are no stage directions, no capitalization, and no punctuation marks. The sentences that approach as an avalanche, bombarding the reader with the multitude of meanings and possible images, are graphically organized as verses of an epic poem of our time, the poetic potential of which, obviously, usually comes out of different forms of degradation, the most interesting being the moral degradation. This is the story about the contemporary society that turned into stock market and contemporary people who turned into traders. About the relation between an individual and the society, that is between the traders and the stock market. About the mercantile nature of contemporary human existence. And about the diseases of contemporary civilization that we alone have created by losing the contact with humanitarian principles proclaimed by the Renaissance. From the man standing in the centre of the universe, we came to the multitude of little self-sufficient universes that the contemporary mankind has turned itself into. ABOUTTHE AUTHOR Albert Ostermeier was born in Munich in 1967. in 1990 he received the Munich scholarship of literature. In 1995 he got the poetry-prize from the PEN-Club of Liechtenstein. In the season of 1996/1997 Ostermaier was the exclusive author of the National-Theatre in Mannheim. In 1997/1998 he writes a commissioned work for the Bavarian State-Theatre on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Bertholt Brecht. In the season of 1 999/2000 he was the exclusive author of the Bavarian State-Theatre. Close cooperation with composers and musicians like Hans Platzgumer, Bert Wrede and Saam Schlamminger. In Oktober of 1997 Ernst-Toiler-Prize. In June 1998 translation-prize from the Goethe-lnstituteforTatarTitus in the course of the MühlheimerTheatre-Festival. In 1998 Hubert von Herkomer-Prizefrom the city of Landsberg/Lech.The city of Munich awarded Ostermaier the Ernst-Hofrichter-Prize in 2000. Also in 2000 the Auhorship-Prizefrom the Heidelberger"Stückemarkt" for Letzter Aufruf. In the same year he was the artistic director of the Poetry Festival "Lyrik am Lech"; from 2006 on he will be the artistic directorof the international brecht-festival"abc"in Augsburg am Lech. In 2001 Writer-in-Residence at New York University. Kleist-Prize in 2003. He is now Playwright-in-Residence for the Burgtheater Wien ABOUTTHE DIRECTOR Born in Belgrade in 1973. Graduated at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (Department of theatre and radio directing) in 1995. Received her M.A. from the Faculty of Philosophy (Contemporary History) in 2002. For one year she pursued advanced training at the Vienna University, Department of Theatrology, as a recipient of Herder scholarship. Her work as a director comprises mostly of contemporary international and local authors such as: M. Meienburg, A. Ostermaier, R. Munro, P. Shaffer, A. Shaffer, R. Harwood, W. Russell, N. Wright, M. McDonagh, but also W. Shakespeare, V. Stevanović Georgijevski, She received an annual award of Belgrade Drama Theatre in 2005. Since 2002 she is the general manager of the Little Theatre "Duško Radović"