Novi Sad Theatre/Újvidéki Színház

ANNA KARENINA

Festival Synenergy, Novi Sad/ Serbia, 25th of November 2019, 19:00

DIRECTOR’S WORDS

Choosing between individual happiness, or happinessof family, or others, whether to choose your own pathor stay within the boundaries in which society puts youat some point, are the choices, dilemmas and questionsposed by this play, directed by Dejan Projkovski.

AnnaKarenina’s decision to go with Vronsky comes at oddswith what is called morality in the society of the time.But, he adds, even today there are choices every personhas to make when deciding what is true, or important,whether to follow his heart nad soul, or agree to thegiven social frameworks.

Projkovski thinks that Ana Karenina has something in herthat in some way makes her the female Hamlet, becausetheir main problem, although for different reasons, is thestruggle of the individual against societ.We are not dealing so much with the form of the time,we are not interested in Tolstoy’s period in terms of style,but in essence, in people who struggle to somehow findtheir way, to find a definition of what happiness is, whatit means to love.

Karenina herself is posing as Sisyphusat one point. Just like Sisyphus, every day she climbs thehill, where she seeks the meaning of life, true love andhappiness, something breaks, and she starts seeking thatmeaning once again, Projkovski explains.However, Some kind of bridge over time, is made whenyou look at the scenery, which is massive, made out ofblack wood, so that one can almost get the impressionthat the play is happening in Tolstoy’s time, and yet it isstill about the present moment.Each play is contemporary in its approach, in the way wetreat it, how we emotionally go through the theme, whilescenography and costume design build that bridge toTolstoy’s era, Projkovski points out.Nataša Pejčić

(Dnevnik, October 14, 2019)

ACTORS ABOUT THE PLAY

The famous love triangle’s interpreters are Mérta Béres,this year’s winner of the Steria Award for her leading rolein the play Hasanaginica, who also had the title role inthis play, then Attila Német interpreting Karenin, whilehis rival Vronsky is played by Árpád Mészáros, also thewinner of the Steria Award in 2011.Dejan Projkovski’s Ana Karenina is the first premiere ofthe 46th season of the Novi Sad Theater, after which sixmore new plays will be premiered in the theater year; allof them are grouped under the slogan ‘Scars’.

Therefore,it was interesting to hear how the actors portraying theleading roles in Anna Karenina linked their characters’fate to the scar motif.“A scar is something that life inflicts on us if we truly live,which we cannot protect ourselves from, and it is alsopointless trying to avoid scarring. A scar is a mark on ahuman.Ana Karenina is a female Hamlet. When we think of her,we think of a train and a suicide, which means that herscars were so deep and strong that she couldn’t live withthem, “said Márta Béres.Attila Német speaks of “psychological or invisible scars- the kind that each person carries with them becauseof the severe trauma they have experienced.

One suchtrauma is divorce – dealing with the fact that you arebreaking up with a loved one, that you are no longerloved, that you have been betrayed, that you have beenabandoned, you have been deceived … And all this isAlexei Karenin. Although the scars he bears, and manyother people who have experienced his or similar fate,are invisible, they are here with us … They always followus and leave a distinct mark in our lives.

ABOUT THE THEATER

Istvan Orkeny’s Macskajatek (A Cat’s Game), performedin 1974, was the theatre’s first production. In 1985, thetheatre was moved to the former Ben Akiba theaterbuilding, and this is where it is still standing, 3-5 JovanaSubotića Street.The plays are performed in Hungarian on two stages –the main stage and the thrust stage. All productions aresimultaneously translated to Serbian.

The managementof Ujvideki Szinhaz has always tried to make therepertoire as diverse as possible, which is why we havealways had the best directors and actors in our team. Everybody who has taken part in the work of this troupeis happy to participate again, mostly because of thegood ensemble, whose work has been awarded on bothlocal and international festivals.

Directors who haveworked with us often like to point out the hard work anddedication of our actors.Ujvideki Szinhaz successfully performed on manylocal and regional festivals – Sterijino pozorje, Bitef, TheFestival of Professional Theatres of Vojvodina (Serbia),MESS in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), as well asthe festivals in Užice (Serbia), Kisvarda, Pecs, Szeged(Hungary) Sibiu (Romania)…In order to take part in these festivals, it is important tohave a good repertoire, the creation of which is alwaysa very delicate and complex process.

One needs tomaintain a high artistic level of production, while tryingto create performances that will strike a chord withdifferent generations and please people of various tastes.There are around five premieres per season, which is alsothe number of plays that are carried over the precedingseason. We feature dramas, vaudevilles, operettas,tragicomedies, musicals… We also feature classics byHungarian, Vojvodinian or global authors, as well ascontemporary plays by authors around the world. Ourlongest running production was Jatek a kastelyban (AGame in the Castle) by Ljubomir Muci Draškić, havingbeen performed for more than ten years.

The productionwhich brought home most awards was Play Strindberg,directed by Radoslav Zlatan Dorić. Our most successfulplays include Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of anAuthor, directed by George Ivascu and Janos Sziveri’sSzeliditesek (The Taming), directed by Kinga Mezei. Ourmost popular productions are the musicals – Starmakers,Hair, Chicago and Rocky Horror Show as well as Operaultima, Neoplanta, Off, Piaf marche, Fiddler on the Roof…Valentin Vencel, actor, has been the head of UjvidekiSzinhaz