Angels in Belgrade

- High culture is not and cannot be the object of neoliberal aggressiveness. The money earmarked for high culture - this means for the theatre as well - is there but is badly distributed. Perhaps this would have passed unnoticed if it had not been for the crisis. But then, it’s no big thing being kind when things are running smoothly – says Gorčin Stojanović, theatre and film director and Yugoslav Drama Theatre artistic director.

By Vesna Knežević Baletić

The current, still fresh season, has kicked off well for Gorčin Stojanović, theatre and film director, columnist and artistic director of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre (JDP) in Belgrade. The play Sanjari (Dreamers), directed by Miloš Lolić and produced by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, won the main prize at this year’s Belgrade International Theatre Festival – BITEF. The JDP opened the season with Tony Kushner’s play Angels in America, and parallel to this, the Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS) showed a TV series called Ono Kao Ljubav (Kinda Like Love). These two productions were directed by Gorčin Stojanović, who continues writing columns and texts in Belgrade-based dailies and periodicals and has no qualms about joining public actions and airing his views on many issues irking our present moment in transition. Literate and eloquent, self-conscious and socially aware of our moment in time, tall and well styled, he is a fine example of a Belgrade intellectual of the new age, in the best sense of the word.

Gorčin Stojanović (1966) was born in Sarajevo, and completed theatrical direction studies in Belgrade in the class of Egon Savin and Dejan Mijač. He directed plays for the JDP, Atelje 212, BITEF Teatar, Belgrade Drama Theatre (BDP), Boško Buha theatre and many other theatre houses outside Belgrade as well as on TV – from Shakespeare to Nušić, and by many contemporary authors. He also directed the films Stršljen (The Hornet) and Ubistvo sa predumišljajem (Premeditated Murder), a cult film made after the novel of Slobodan Selenić.

We talked with Gorčin Stojanović in early October, ahead of the première Angels in America, subtitled: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. This play, written some twenty years ago, won Tony Kushner the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, four Tony Awards for Best Play, the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards... The piece ruthlessly dissects contemporary American society and identifies the spiritual, psychical and physiological disorders gnawing at it by portraying intimate stories of lonely people in search of self-determination. The vulnerability of the gay population and the racism, anti-Semitism, lovelessness, alienation – are some of the issues the play dwells on. Despite the time and geographical distance, the play remains chillingly topical to this day. This is why we asked Gorčin Stojanović:

To what measure were you governed by our current situation and to what measure did you follow the author in doing the play and shaping the characters?

- It’s incredible just how much relevancy lines from the play have today. One of the director’s tasks is, so to speak, to actualize the play. He needs – like a conductor – to accentuate certain sections. One needs to lend stress to the sections capable of inviting associations relative to the present moment, at least those emotional, and perhaps reflective ones. In this particular piece, this was not a problem because virtually every sentence is also painfully topical today. This play is sufficiently accurately written and needs no adding to, which is something I deplore doing anyhow. I prefer ‘conducting’ to adding ‘musical notes’. The job of the conductor is interesting enough, and it is up to me as conductor to find parts in the play that are capable of actuating it, first on the emotional and then on the reflective plane.

Your work as a theatre, TV and film director. Which of these do you prefer in terms of expressing yourself?

- On the one hand, directing taken as an uninterrupted series of irreversible decision-makings is a unique skill regardless of these three technologically distinctive media. On the other hand, the theatre is exciting precisely for its elusiveness and fundamental focus on man and not technology. On the stage, man is observable intact and the viewer decides when and what to focus on. Naturally, the element of manipulation persists, but is more humane than on film or TV. Therein lies the critical difference. And thereabouts, actually, is the answer to the question about my preference.

How do you decide which text to direct in the theatre?

- I ask myself, is it getting to me or not. Do the themes of my choice, those that interest me or obsessively concern me match those of the author. Or, at least, match the author’s theme(s), as I see it. Directing, by its very nature, is invariably digressive. There can be no authentic reading of a text. In that sense – even as he reads a text, a director is already directing it, that is digressively reading it. But, like everyone else, we can agree on the content of Hamlet easily. However, for some readers it’s a story about revenge, but for others it’s a story about human weaknesses. I know I would like to do a piece after the first reading. The first impression about the text is what counts. Work, craft, knowledge set in after that. But the first strike a play either makes or does not make on first contact is crucial.

Parallel with your permanent job at the JDP and working as director, you also write – about music and football, theatre and coffeehouses, bombing and love... Can this be ascribed to your desire to more directly address the public or to your need to express yourself creatively in this way?

- I have been writing since I was seventeen. Exactly on my seventeenth birthday I took my first text to a newspaper for publishing. It was a review of the Električni Orgazam rock band’s third album. I have continued - it’s been now 26 years - writing ever since. It so happened that they immediately made me a columnist. In this way I acquired a certain routine in writing. This was, and I’m not joking when I say this, greatly assisted by the fact that I attended a school for languages and typewriting classes through all four years, though these were not optional. Blind typing and using the ten-finger system continues the only serious skill I possess. I was conscripted two years later, having enrolled in the Academy before that. When I returned, I wrote about film for the Zagreb-based Oko and the Sarajevo-based papers Odjek and Oslobodjenje. Occasionally, I write essays on the theatre. Since 1995 I’ve been writing columns covering a broader range of issues, initially in Naša Borba, then in Vreme, Blic... But this, it seems to me, is an extension of my thoughts as director about the world, because one cannot aspire to directing before one begins reflecting on the world. And, as the craft of directing calls for concretisation, voicing reactions at weekly intervals, among other things, becomes an good exercise for a director. Taking up writing about football, on the other hand, has to do with the passion for the game, the same passion that is part of that which makes me live for and work in the theatre.

Are you pleased at the way viewers are receiving the Ono Kao Ljubav sitcom currently shown on RTS?

- I am. Strangers come up to me every day and comment on the show, as do acquaintances. Everyone has the need to communicate their words of praise. The series’ ratings are good, and rising, if this be an indicator. I am not overly familiar with television, but it seems to me that there is a need among viewers for diversification. Perhaps this, too, has contributed to the series’ meeting with success.

Do tell us something about the new season at the JDP.

- I wish I could talk comprehensively about the plans. However, considering the financial situation, after the premiere of Pierre de Marivaux’s La Dispute directed by the guest from Romania, Alexandru Darie, I can but say that the next in line are Slobodan Unkovski and Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Both pieces have been my long-standing desires, and not just something the repertoire lacked. I am very pleased that the two comedies will highlight this season at the JDP. The premiere of Ana Lasić’s piece called Za Sada Nigde (Nowhere, At This Time) directed by Dina Radoman is soon to be played at the Studio stage. This production will be the result of a workshop and experimental work. That, after all, is the purpose behind the Studio stage. As for anything else, it is very difficult to say. Everything is fraught with uncertainty.

How do you see the theatres in Belgrade in this year of crisis going about resolving the discrepancy between desires (needs) and poor financial standing?

- The people in power will have to answer that question – do they want to have theatres in Belgrade? High culture is not and cannot be the object of neoliberal aggressiveness. The money is there but it is moving in the wrong direction. A shocking piece of information is that one season at the JDP, Atelje 212 theatre or BDP costs as much as the city gave out for Madonna’s concert, which, apart from being a flop commercially, was totally inconsequential and did nothing in terms of boosting the city’s image because it in no way put Belgrade on the world map. The same applies for the Universiade – an unnecessary and expensive show about which even the most enthusiastic devotees can say nothing meaningful. Can you, having watched broadcasts of other Universiades, name any five cities in which it was held? The money for high culture, and the theatre undoubtedly belongs there –I repeat - the money is there, but it was badly distributed. This perhaps is not visible when things go well. But, it’s no big thing to be kind when things are going well. Politicians need to understand the priorities.

What is an intellectual’s duty in Serbia?

- Like that of any other intellectual elsewhere. To notice things, to have constant insight, to develop critical thinking and not to shy away from speaking in public.

What plans do you have – are you already working on something new, will you be doing something new, and what would you like to be doing?

- The crisis has disrupted my plans too. I should have been in Novi Sad, doing Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens at the Serbian National Theatre. Some other things as well. I have plans in all areas I move in but the current moment precludes my talking of them as certainties. As for myself, I am not too keen on announcing something that is utterly uncertain.