Bitef

REVIEWS The oblivlon of life and death Melancholy and endless sorrow.This is also a quotation. Drama Me or Somebody Else is full of quotations, and consistent with the current event which served as the cause but not as the result of Maja Pelevlc's work, It puts on thè maskofa story of a kidnapping and captivity in the style of Western thrillers, which engenders a true ethereal elegiac poem ofthe world, people, and things that the author locales as vital institutions ofthe perverse Organization of the western culture - about Her and Hirn as attempted individuáis, Mother and Father as the"pillars"of family, about Neighbors, Concerned Citizens, the Media and Authorities. A multitude of generalizations widens thè scope ofthe Operation, because what Maja Pelevic undertakes, with the cheekiness typical of her generation, is an intimate duel, slicing through the global state of mind in which hypocrisy leaves practically no room for emotions, whetherthey are materialized through finding or losing sense, cognition, love, or finally even chocolate. The author thus reachesfor sophisticated, a la Morison, killing the parent and literary launching the mechanisms ofthe Contemporary world, which in the drama (and drama alone) collides with thè individualization of a growing up girl because of its (In)capabilities. ln thè line with the position of Isolation which conditions the desertion into the oniric world (actually "inniric"one), Maja Pelevic disposes ofthe religious principies full of dead weight through hercharacters, indirectly and paradoxically responsiblefor pathology of Contemporary society. "And God sawall things he had made and they were very g00d...", presents a top class discovery of ironical departure into latent cynicism of our heroine, who is tragic enough for its age alone and who will get into the hell ofthe jungle by the will of her guardián "ángel". She, a dreamy girl who becomes a stränge kind of Barbie, pays her freedom dearly, just like Hirn, a contagiously "perverse old man" - the kidnappet, a saint - a philosopher and a demon - the fallen ángel, torn apart by thè desire for thè garden on the other side of good and bad. Mäher and Father, although victims, are nothing more than caricatures of a typical business idiot and ambitious housewife, who find newspapers and a vase more interesting than their daughter, because thè girl seems tobe just another item of furnishings. And furtherfrom thè intimate level everything is made into cliché, all other"characters": Neighbors, Concerned Citizens, the Media, Authorities - all of them are nothing but eerie ghosts ofthe oblivion of life and death. Amorphous mass, choirs ofemptied people in plástic symbiosis.The Public media, with capitai"?", are hereforthe higher purpose than the destiny of somebody eise, non-Self individual orgroup;the pólice are proverbially incompetent, and they all receive wholehearted help ofthe"concerned" neighbors and citizens, even though the author generously and persistently sends the refusing slogan; "You will never know what happened behind those walls."And we are all Me, You, or somebody else. And we all have our own head fortraveiing... And this is the very tone Kokan Mladenovic's directing puts up front, showing that in thè play Me or Somebody Else, just as the title says, drama cannot be placed anywhere else.There is no room for suffering and horror on thè stage, that isachievedfrom the other side, through moments of anxiety, grotesque, cheerfulness, satire, absurd... Not buying the"thriller" versión, Mladenovic is set on tearing the walls down, on revealing and exposing, limlting all but Her and Hirn in every way and leave them Standing "silly" in their universality, superficiality and general understanding. Yet, thè director dissociates from the uncompromisingly cruel ambigulty ofthe author, so he uses mainly iyrical colors in depicting the relationship between the victim and the villain, while abundantly sharpening (anti)family plain of Mother and Father, and the monstrous insensitivity ofthe Media, which just like the Neighbors and Concerned Citizens, effectively function both as a choir and individually (choreography by Olivera Kovacevic-Crnjanski). (Un)consciousiy failing to build on a carefully optimistic detail from the beginning of Her story: "I feel good when I drink wine and make memories. And I remember. And I want to remember..." the play's strongest effect is on the plain of empathy with the disappolnting destiny of (a) young (female) human being. 1t seems that this plain was the one on which thè whole team ofthe Serbian National Theatre who partidpated in realization ofthe play took with extreme dedication and respect. That is why Marija Medenica (She) deserves tobe singied out from thè resi of thè cast, for she succeeded to fit into thè concepì, and distinguisi! herseif, by her focused and at moments disarming performance ofthe lead role. Certainly Marija Medenica had a wholehearted support to achieve that and a framework provided by Boris Isakovic's performance (He), who in spile ofthe meticulousness of his expression, as a character stays unfinished between the generalized world and his own uniqueness.The author makes a whole world ofthe story of the hypnotized, mechanically tragicomic Mother (Jasna Djuricic), thè woman whose sprit lives in lipstick, mirrar and botile, and her spineless partner, Father (Miroslav Fabri).

Igor Burle

("Dnevnik” March 27th 2007)