Bitef

Austrian Cultural Forum and Bitef Theatre

Emilija Andrejevic

VELIKI FAJRONT (BOON BARTENDER)

Director, set and costume designer: Christian Papke Dramaturge: lan Prester

Organisation; Milica Mihailovic

Cast: Tijana Curovic, Elizabeta Durevska, Dorde Ercevic, Daniel Kovacevic, Zarko Lazic

Directed by: Christian Papke

They are young, good looking, well educated. Their chance is never to come.

Andrejevic's price-awarded comedy pictures a young generation on a waiting position.They have all for a great future: thè right age, thè right education, thè right energy. But their future will never come, their talent will be wasted on thè traps and cliffs of society. Not just another Big Brother story, Veliki fajront demónstrales thè mechanism of society as a big competitive game. Fhendship, compassion, love could be possible but winnlng is more important. Winnlng what? The next step to go ahead, another round? This endless game produces no winners.

Veliki fajront puts a criticai stress on current global capitalismi as much as on its characters willing to valúate their own profit more than thè benefit of thè group. It describes a hopeless generation misled by an overaged society. Unable to claim their rights on adapting thè world they live in to their needs, they create own worlds in their heads, exchange life with virtual life.

The young Austrian director Christian Papke puts thè focus on thè individuai choice between winning and personal integrity. "At some point to keep up an integer self you have to give up piaying games", Papke says. 'The characters reflect different strategies to deal with thè rules of society and not always winning means being thè winner."

Performed by some of thè finest Serbian actors (Tijana Curovic, Elizabeta Dorevska, Dorde Ercevic, Danijel Kovacevic, Zarko Lazic), Papke directs a piece of pop-theatre: in search of thè right style, thè right truth, thè right coolness and thè right blues. Papke rejects thè stereotypes and Images of theatre and replaces them with fresh characters from pop culture celebrating a big party: Veliki Fajront.

CHRISTIAN PAPKE

It was thè revenge of thè cook that spoiled me. She look me, a child born into a world of Protestant ethic, European affluence and polite reservation to thè Favelas, thè pulsating home of Rio de Janeiro's poor and wretched. There I found my playmates. 1 was exposed to a whoie new concepì of life, thè warmth and fhendship of thè Brazilians, thè impotence in thè face of thè most abject poverty. With thè walls of my elite high school, protected by barbed wire, 11 left behind my life that had up to then been very well confined. I irreversibly lost my certaìnty that I was a child of privilege by thè will of god, that I was right and thè others wrong, that we all get what we deserve. The revolutionär spirit of a good cook is thoughtful, caring and relentless.

Since then I am Crossing borders. Conscious of my own culture, learning about other ways of thinking is an endless adventure for thè mind. Foreign place becomeyour home and a stranger becomes a friend. At thè moment we are working with Austrians, Italiens, Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, Turks, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Germans and Estonians. With big stars, and smali actors, amateurs and children. We play for thè young, thè very old, for low class, upper class and normal people. And we bring together people trying to shatter their certaìnty that they are right and thè others wrong. Thoughtful, caring and relentless.

Dr. Christian Papke is theatre director in Vienna, Founder of thè Austrian Drama Contest 'Talking About Borders" 2005-11 and board member of thè Austrian P.E.N.-Club.