From the 38th Theatre Festival “Vojdan Černodrinski”

/, Theatre/Film, Blesok no. 33/From the 38th Theatre Festival “Vojdan Černodrinski”

From the 38th Theatre Festival “Vojdan Černodrinski”

The Hero Runs the Final Round
Non-Existence in the Existence
Maggie the Cat, Between Foggy Victories and Feelings
Cure for Painful Spots
Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on the Hot Tin Roof”; directed by Krasimir Spasov; costumes and stage by Marina Raičinova; choreography: Crenare Nevzati – Keri; music: Webster – saxophone; light – Kire Stavrevski; tone-master: Čedomir Mladenovski

Modern American theatre via the line of Eugene O’Niell, Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee has strengthened its realistic theatric principle, at the same time diverting from this poetics, each of these dramatists with their own playwright-technical creativity and obsessive thematic features. Tennessee Williams (with his plays: “Glass Menagerie”, “Streetcar Called Desire”, “Cat on the Hot Tin Roof”) brings new individuality and psychology, with a lyric color. What stresses Tennessee’s dramaturgy is the openness to homosexual world, incest drives and mad sexuality.
What happens in the “Cat on Hot Tin Roof”? The worm of death has long been present in the gentlemanly family, which additionally completely opens the psychological turmoil of the characters, born from the existential frame of the suffering. The restless cramp of suspense, with some desperate and seeming hope, or the lack of answer to tomorrow’s and everyday troubles and their complete artificiality in the name of materiality – is the abyss above which the heroes of Tennessee hang. The cancer induced suffering of the father (Meto Jovanovski) is just an additional syndrome of the rule of death in the noble home. And maybe it is his illness that makes him even more sober in his drives, in his honesty, in his maniacal desires (for example, to fuck several young pussies). And around him there is the artificial “refined” respect and love of the megalomaniac wishes and low desires of his closets, starting from his son Gooper (Jovica Mihajlovski), May – his wife (Viktorija Angjuševa) and ending with the behavior of the servant (Gjorgji Todorovski) and the several signs of the stepson Tooker (Anastas Tanovski). The voice and especially the moments of contemplation of the father looked like the macho western types that show both cruel and comic dye, in combination with our Balkan profiled movies. His appearance put next to Meggie’s (Irena Ristik) world and the one of her husband Brick (Dragan Spasov) sheds light to his inclination to them: the alcoholic son and the attractive daughter-in-law who have no children, and to whom he wants to leave the estate. The other parallel world that cuts into these relations and wishes is the world of the other (unwanted) son and his hyper productive female. Their acting in this desperate labyrinth was cute, but still with a dose of a bit forced deceit, hypocrisy and over-playing. This over-acting also followed in the appearance of the servant, who was a leftover of the classical game and more the comedy del arte – intrigue inducing, even with an ironic twist, which depleted the seriousness of the images and appearances when he was on the stage. The behavior of Brick was rigid, his delirium tremens leaked with the aggression and funny howling at the Moon. This character of Maggie managed to bear the burden till the end. Maggie is a woman thirsty of love, Maggie is the aching point of the close, friendly world of Brick and his athlete colleague. She is a poor girl who came to the huge rich estate and she fights to gain, to gain the heritage with Brick, Maggie is the attempt and hope for restarting of life, house, Her already psychotic, lustful and barging desire for life, love, and existential security never ends. Showing the source of truth for all holes and truths in the society, the division is in the unclear homosexual-friendly love. The costumes (of Marina Raičinova) largely kept the allusion of time and characters, their status and age. The choreography (of Crenare Nevzati-Keri) was mostly seen in the dance movements and elements, in harmony with dialogue games. The light effect – announcing the following events and a punch-line as a support to the psychological stress with the characters.
The music of the bands Chicago and Babester – the saxophone was a constant careless moment of the play, the psychological instability boiling at the home; the mutual link in the false celebrations in the hopeful attempts for a different life.

2018-08-21T17:23:29+00:00 August 1st, 2003|Categories: Reviews, Theatre/Film, Blesok no. 33|0 Comments