One couldn’t feel weariness in the KIC ”Budo Tomović” venue brimming with people. The witty dialogues were a perfect counterpart to the acting ensemble of the City Theatre, led by the brilliant Nebojša Dugalić.
Although in some moments certain features of the regional dialect were lacking, Dugalić strived to follow the natural rhythm of the language the best he could. He succeeded to a great degree in illustrating everything the reader can find in Kojović’s Memoirs and Annals.
It is important to mention that Antun Kojović was an active participant in Budva’s everyday life and its manifold problems: food scarcity due to sometimes infertile soil, robberies, and conflicts in volatile times. However, there were also the rare moments of winding down during the carnival.
He worked as a teacher to the children of Budva without being paid and was even a tutor to one of the most distinguished persons in Budva-Stefan Mitrov Ljubiša. Even though he was a priest, during the quest of Paša Bušatlija he proved that he was always ready to take on a new role of catering for the ones in trouble. They were, in this particular instance, forced to hide on the islands near Petrovac. Also, he didn’t always see eye to eye with the church’s viewpoints and was a member of the Masonic lodge (a basic unit of Freemasonry). He was also one of, if not the most important person when it came to organizing Budva’s cultural life with the no so abundant means that the town possessed.
Vida Ognjenović’s version of Antun Kojović (with the assistance of Branka Knežević) took the stage as a figment of the imagination of a young scientist Dušan. The two timelines were in sync due to the scenography of Vladislava Kanington.
Speaking of the atmosphere, the play wouldn’t be what it was without the support of the dynamic City Theatre ensemble. Branka Femić Šćekić, Smiljana Martinović, Lara Dragović, Una Lučić, Itana Dragojević and Anđela Radović are the ones who take the most credit for the epigrammatic town scenery and the carnival atmosphere which absorbed everyone’s attention. Mišo Obradović provided an interesting and a little bit eccentric actor interpretation of Stjepan Zenović who was Kojović’s contemporary and a famous “hacker” of that time.
With good assistance of the actors Pavle Ilić, Davor Dragojević, Pavle Popović, Danilo Čelebić (CNP), Vukan Pejović and Ognjen Sekulić, the stage, especially in parts representing the carnival, became a small visual spectacle. The final touch were the costumes by Marija Papučevska. The dynamic stage movement was thought through by Sonja Vukičević while Damjan Jovičin was responsible for the music. There is no doubt that by the time of the “Theatre City” premiere the play would be additionally polished and the dramatist solutions more accurately realized.
Kojović’s life and authorial expression were always resisting conformation. His literary legacy consists of comedies written for specific purposes with the addition of the lyrical canon which is satirical and not too extensive. All this gives us much food for thought and should be taken into account but doesn’t reveal another side to Kojović: namely Kojović as a writer of Memoirs and Annals. His picturesque and detailed chronical writings accurately reflect all the difficulty of the political change and the internal drama of a critical mind in volatile times.
The author had a difficult task of integrating into the framework of a play a life that spanned for almost a century (1751-1846). While the French Revolution was sending an old world into an oblivion and the new one was emerging as a necessity, a tiny Budva was changing administration every couple of months.
The Austrian, Montenegrin, Russian and French administration were taking each other’s place at a fast pace after more than three centuries of Venetian rule. Budva was in a constant state of siege, while Kojović’s unchanged reaction was to fight for the autonomy of the town, the protection of its physical territory and that without religious exclusivity or leaning towards one side or another.
Vida Ognjenović stayed true to Kojović’s writings that she transformed into interesting disputes between characters that held opposing views and fruitful dialogues. Her hero explains to young Dušan that he shouldn’t admire him and says:”You’re right but tribe rebellions are a tradition here. They are as common as weddings and funerals”. ”Our people get bored when everything is as it’s supposed to be so we tend to hurt one another out of spite”. ”You can read in there that the neighboring tribes attacked the town in order to rob us and so as to make the process faster decided to execute all the Catholics from Budva starting with Kojović”. ”Do you see now giovinotto how cheap is the human head here. This is the curse of a small town and you want me to be a hero always with a gun”.
After the excellent texts and corresponding directions of the plays Kanjoš Macedonović and Don Krsto, Vida Ognjenović managed to solve the problem of Kojović’s conventional works of literature and his much better chronicles. In a post-modernist manner, she interrelated facts and fiction. On the two opposite sides were the days of letting off steam during the carnival and the deeply tragic destiny of a life in a small town (then Budva, now Montenegro as a part of a huge global village). Maybe one would recognize some kind of pattern in the author’s device, already seen in her play Don Krsto. It seems, however, that exactly this kind of dramatist approach was an optimal way to put before the audience the spirit of the times and the one of a kind personality of a individual important for Budva and its history.
The circumstances of Kojović’s life are in many respects similar to the ones in our society nowadays. Therefore, the dramatist solution of interconnecting two timelines makes perfect sense. Doomed to carry the burden of a life in a small town, Kojović admires the unbelievable strength of Napoleon and Stjepan Zanović. It is important to state that Kojović admired the political figure and personality of the Metropolitan Petar I the most and always referred to him as a Cavalier. Kojović wasn’t there to witness the revolutionary terror in France and the destruction of the great ideas in the power struggle. Spellbound by the idea of freedom, he wouldn’t manage to learn that it didn’t include women. He wouldn’t hear of Olympe de Gouges’ Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the Female Citizen. What would be even harder for him to understand is the fact that de Gouge was guillotined on the basis of the attack on the Revolutionary Government regime.
Antun Kojović was, as primarily an author of the works written for specific occasions, highly prone to stereotyping women (although reminding the reader often that it was a joke).The author of the dramatic text obviously stayed in the line of the testimonies that Kojović’s unpleasant experience with his sister Katarina was the reason why in his work Smiješni Razgovori (Witty Dialogues) and carnival songs women were often than men represented as drunks, schemers and deceptive caretakers. It is not like the author couldn’t have put a highlight on the Kojović’s writings representing women as courageous and full of solidarity for one another. After all, women saved him from certain death.
As a director, Vida Ognjenović decided to go for a different interpretation without which the text would certainly loose some of its authenticity. For example, after the scene in which the church authorities prohibited Kojović to host a celebration in honor of Napoleon, he still did it as a part of carnival festivities. The scene in which one of the women appeared wearing a costume of a young Napoleon is actually an author comment on the Napoleon figures of all times- the revolutionary terror, sufferings and wars of Olympe de Gouge as well as countless deaths being an unmistakable part of it.
The dramatic text allows for more interventions of these kind, and it can be said that the additional alterations of the play will bring to the surface all of its manifold potentials. Maybe it is not a coincidence that after three millennia, the persona of Antun Kojović is again introduced to Budva and that by a woman who is acclaimed for her authenticity as well as for being politically and socially engaged in the events of her country.
All this gives us a reason to believe that this co-production of the “Theatre City” Budva and City Theatre Podgorica is just the beginning of a promising new festival season.
Author of the text: Božena Jelušić
Source:Vijesti
Date: 02.03.2024