The Šopalović Travelling Troupe

Production of The Travelling Troupe Šopalović by the legendary Belgrade Atelje 212, which was a hatchery of the most accomplished personalities of the Yugoslavian and later the Serbian theatre of the second part of the 20^th century, is precious by the connection of brilliant text, outstanding actors and a fresh, brave directing vision.

The production is based on the classical story of one travelling troupe which on a Summer day visits one provincial Serbian town in order to give performance of Schiller´s The Robbers despite the fact that the town is occupied by the enemy and is full of gallows, shooting and war refugees. Slovenian director Tomi Janežić constructs this play about the meaning of art during the war time and the idealism of committed art, written twenty years ago, as a contemporary, radiantly coloured picture of reality, designed as a seeming work in progress but which is, paradoxically, thought-out to the last detail. In this picture, he uncovers all the stages of the development and the particles the piece is composed of – the actors´ absolute informal approach normally seen only at the rehearsals, stage managers, the playing space itself and, eventually, the audience. It is not a shallow experiment, the director thoroughly reads the original text and fulfils the objectives of the author – to emphasize the reflection over the role and responsibility of theatre (art) in times when all values are drowning and lose their meaning. Janežić adds to this basic theme the issue of honesty and truthfulness between the creator and the audience in present times when the reality of war can be equally illusive and misleading like any Hollywood movie blockbuster.

The principle to nourish in the audience the uncertainty whether what they see is Verism or mere fantasy, has already started to be known as the Janežić´s system. It is characteristic for its working tint of the resulting form, discontinuing and aposiopesis of particular actions which are presented to the audience only in minimum hints and minimum acting endeavour, but with maximum understanding. The audience and the actors merge in the space and by outer signs, same like in wars – in certain situation the observing may be considered the guilty.
Maja Hriešik