Why nobody likes the independent projects in which the authors use the system of escape from the institution in which it is more and more difficult for them, and create projects with high values, honesty to the truth for themselves and the circumstances in which they live
In a situation of general zombification, a word that sublimes the situation of this country Macedonia, the theater and its creators, as the complete culture, are a “poor life”. This life is developing metastases, it threatens, destroys. If the professional theaters create and maintain their repertoires by sheer “muscle force” of the hope that dies the last, to which they are fully entitled, there is another segment of the theater space that dies, so to say, in its prime, but rises from its ashes and moves to another one. These are the plays/projects that are created outside the institutions and which, as a rule, after they are shown to the public, do not incite any interest. Except for, of course, their creators.
There are a significant number of plays that are created outside the institutions. They are prepared with an even bigger enthusiasm (oh, until when!), but they also have the worst of fate. Their creators prepare them there, and they are happy when they find the space to play the opening night – in rented halls for which they pay high prices. After the enthusiasm passes, after the opening night ends and the play is shown for one/two more times, enthusiasm ends with the money that can be used to pay the venue. A new venue is sought; one which costs more money and the circle is closed. The play created as an independent project dies. At least at home.
Here there are two, that is three, quite significant elements. First, these plays that have like-minded authors gathered around the project, most of the time have a high artistic value. They are made to defy the time, the general zombification, there is lot of love invested in them, against the wind, there is a lot of knowledge there, and there are no compromises. So, these are good plays that reveal, they work following the system of theatre laboratory, they are created in hope that one should and has to reach the top. Second, they are very penetrable, because of the composition of all elements in them, and they become plays that international festivals and events that cherish this type of theatre are interested in.
The thing that they have in common is the third and most paradoxical element: there is no place outside for them, and nobody likes them at home, as the authors themselves say. The latest examples of these (although there are many) are the three plays: Posledniot maž, poslednata žena (The Last Man, the Last Woman), Kontaminacija Kolyada (Contamination Kolyada) and ZOO Story, which were staged in 2005, and now (only after one, two or three times), nobody can see them anymore. All three plays will be staged in other spaces this calendar year, outside the country. This selective choice of three plays can of course be expanded to many other, which the audience around the world sees more than the local ones due to the lack of their own space. There are, for example, two more titles that belong to the “independent production”, which can not be seen by the audience in Macedonia, while they are shown around the world, collecting audience approval and festival awards: Diary of the Madman, directed by Ivan Popovski, and Father, directed by Slobodan Unkovski.
Still, I will write about the three new plays, which were staged with little announcement in the media, and which were not even discussed about by the theatre critics.