Quality Has an Audience

– What interests me in theatre is the possibility of formal exploration and an outstanding theme, a story that is multifaceted and metaphorical, – says Tanja Mandić Rigonat, one of the selectors of this year’s Sterijino Pozorje Festival and the directors of The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents, which recently premiered in the National Theatre.

By Vesna Knežević Baletić
Photo Courtesy of National Theatre

Theatre director, poet and playwright Tanja Mandić Rigonat is one of the jurors of the 53^rd Sterijino Pozorje Festival to be held from May 26^th to June 5^th in Novi Sad. She was selected for this flattering but sometimes ungrateful task (politics are found in the world of theatre, as they are everywhere else) after a decade of hard work spent in the theatre, during which time she worked on 20 staged plays, mostly in Atelje 212, Yugoslav Drama Theatre and the National Theatre in Belgrade. In her most recent project, Ms. Mandic directed a play by a young Swiss playwright, Lucas Barfuss, entitled The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents, which premiered on April 30^th at the National Theatre, featuring an excellent Vanja Ejdus in the role of socially uniformed Dora.

- Why this title?

- Because I think it’s a very good drama, with a good theme and a good story. It is set, so I was also forced to deal with theatre form, which is something I love to do. Actually, I love experimental theatre, exploring theatre, and I want each play I work on to be a step forward in relation to my previous work in terms of conquering theatrical language. Also, I love theatre that attracts me through emotions and intellect, and I don’t like theatre which recycles déja vu, regardless if it is film or theatre. In fact what interests me is the possibility of formal exploration and an outstandingly good theme, a story that is multifaceted and metaphorical.

- Judging from the titles you have recently stage,d you are interested in the contemporary themes and problems of today’s society?

- Yes. I look at myself as a director when I did Lolita, long ago in ‘96/97, and since then until now, the path of my interest has been noticeable. In that period I directed An Accidental Man, Bergman’s Sonata, Oxygen, Hitler and Hitler… In recent years what has especially inspired me is contemporary Russian drama, which is the most interesting and significant phenomenon within contemporary European drama. Young Russian authors unite deep moral questions in a witty and paradoxical way, as set out in the 19-century Russian novel, and here I think primarily of Dostoyevsky, and mixed with the exploration of theatrical expression found in Soviet avant-garde theatre, and here I think of Kharms and Vvedensky. In this combination, and faced with Russian reality, we have a precious direction in theatre, which is for me the most important current on the contemporary European scene.

- What are the moral problems of contemporary society dealt with in the Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents?

- This play puts a strong accent on the clash that occurs between a different individual and his environment. We explore under a magnifying glass relations between mother and daughter, father and mother, father and daughter, actually the way an entire neurotic family functions and the mechanisms that parents deploy to crush the authenticity of a child so they can experience through that something of their own. We deal with notions of love and erotic attraction in today’s world of no-love. Because we don’t live in a world of love and sexuality, but in a porno world at all levels – political, cultural, social… In today’s civilisation love is separated from sexuality. And sexuality is actually an entire cosmos that belongs to the god Eros, the carrier of life energy. When you extinguish that, you extinguish the idea of life as such. This kind of eroticism is present in developing talent, in developing distinctiveness, in developing otherness. And to be a person actually means to be different, to be your own self and not to be shaped after some consumer model. That was the theme of Oxygen and is also close to that of Hitler and Hitler. I turn within this circle of themes.

- What structure of personality is socially desirable today?

- Hypocrisy is desirable. Ten years ago I wrote a poem published in my collection From the Life of Birds, it begins with these verses: "Don’t be a mannequin please, our children will be no mannequins, I hope". And to be a mannequin means to momentarily take off one social role in and put on, or adopt, another, to be someone who constantly lies and to gain social benefit with these lies. To be sincere, good, diligent, dedicated, and spontaneous, these qualities are not appreciated in today’s world. I think about us here, because it interests me, it concerns me.

- You are the selector of this year’s Sterijino Pozorje Festival and thus you have a good overview of the theatre season?

- It is ungrateful to be an arbiter, but on the basis of what I have seen, I can say that we have a generation of young authors, female ones before all, writing better and better plays every year. Therefore, we have a vivid dramatic scene when it comes to writing. Here I think of Milena Marković, Maja Pelević, Milena Bogavac, Marija Karaklajić and, of course, Biljana Srbljanović. The plays I have seen this year are characterised by an exceptionally high level of acting. The work of our theatre directors is above all evident in their cooperation with actors. We have excellent actors. What our theatre lacks, perhaps, is a more courageous exploration of theatrical language and theatrical forms. It’s as if we fear that we shall have no public if we experiment. And it is not true. Anything that demands a lot from actors and text alike always has an audience. Quality is being recognised. You see this also by what our public likes to watch at the Festival of Author’s Film, what they flock to at Fest, what books they buy at the Book Fair, what they listen to in music. Not all of Serbia is turbo; that is a false picture of Serbia. Our public has a developed taste.

- When we speak about theatrical life in Serbia, as a rule we think of Belgrade, but there are good theatres outside the capital as well.

- There are, of course. In this year’s selection for Pozorje is a play performed by the Zrenjanin Theatre after Ivan Lalić’s text, directed by Egon Savin. Apart from Zrenjanin and Novi Sad, an interesting theatrical scene can be also found in Subotica. Naturally, it is not like it was in the time of Ljubiša Ristić when the whole of Subotica was a city-theatre, but there are now some very interesting directors, like Androš Urban, an outstanding personality. There are good theatres outside Belgrade.

- How did you select plays done after the texts of domestic authors for the 53^rd Sterijino Pozorje Festival?

- I wanted to mark the most impressive theatrical events with this selection, worked in the key of diverse poetics…to mark everything that has been characteristic over the past season, and in doing so, not to make a selection that is necessarily dictated by my individual taste but by all that I carry both as an intellect and as the theatrical experience of a spectator. Hence, not to impose what I would like, a kind of director’s concept, because I live my concepts through my plays, but to recognize the diverse manuscripts of my colleagues-directors. That’s why this year’s selection includes totally different plays like, let’s say, It should Have Been So and The Šopalović Travelling Theatre, as a sort of extremes. There are also the plays Instant Sexual Education done after the important text by Đorđe Milosavljević that speaks bravely about the world of today’s teenagers and a new text by Biljana Srbljanović, with the very subtle directing of Dejan Mijač, as well as the already mentioned Šopalovic Travelling Theatre, one essay on theatre that places the question of what is deconstruction and what destruction before the theatrical gourmets. Therefore, this is as wide a selection as is possible. That’s why there are two plays directed by Egon Savin, because I was not interested in how many plays directed by one director I invited -- I invited a play as such. And I was not interested in that sick psychology and practice to respect some sort of key. I was interested in plays and their total value according to all the isolated segments – acting, stage design, costumes and director’s manuscript that unites all of the above and is recognised. Hence, the harmony of everything seen. I would mention the theatrical enterprise from Niš, which is not included in the selection. It is the play Selected and Destroyed directed by Kokan Mladenović, which is not in the selection because it doesn’t satisfy all the components, but what I want to stress is that this theatrical project is interesting.