Premiere of the Play “Madame Olga” on 10 December in Banja Luka and 24 December in Belgrade

The play “Madame Olga”, based on the text by the great Serbian poet Milutin Bojić and directed by Jug Đorđević, created as a co-production of the National Theatre in Belgrade and the National Theatre of the Republic of Srpska, premiered on 10 December on the Main Stage of the National Theatre of the Republic of Srpska in Banja Luka.

The Belgrade premiere will take place on 24 December 2025 (8:30 p.m.) on the “Raša Plaović” Stage.

The bourgeois drama “Madame Olga”, although written more than a century ago, addresses the topics that still seem highly relevant today, such as the supremacy of capital over morality, moral bankruptcy, and above all, the conflict between generations.

Dramaturge Đorđe Kosić, set designer Dragana Purković Macan, costume designer Velimirka Damjanović, composer Nevena Glušica, as well as Milica Cerović (stage movement), Dejan Sredojević (stage speech), and Mia Mlinarević (lighting designer), make up the creative team of this theatrical production, in which the roles are played by Nela Mihailović (Olga Ristićka), Ljubiša Savanović (Lawyer Novaković), Slađana Zrnić / Nikolina Friganović (Novaković’s Wife), Aleksandar Vučković (Gidra), Iva Milanović (Vuka), and Smiljana Marinković (Marija).

Recalling that the word has, in essence, always carried great weight, director Đorđević remembered that even as a child he was fascinated by the folktale of Emperor Trojan and his goat ears, as well as by the barber who, while protecting both himself and the entrusted secret, nevertheless reveals what should not be spoken aloud.

“And in Bojić’s play, written more than a century ago, it is precisely the word that sets off an avalanche. No matter whether secret or public, spoken, silenced, or suppressed, a single word - such as incest, illness, money, honour - can cost dearly those who try to bury their secrets deep, like the barber from the folktale, hoping that no elder tree will grow from that hole, with three shoots beautiful and tall as a rock. However, what happens if, from all those secrets, fears, and unspoken truths, not just one tree, but an entire forest grows and its undergrowth, flooding the world? What happens if, in that thick shrubs, we begin to view death as a blessing? What then?”, Đorđević wonders.

“Viewed through the lens of naturalistic drama, the erotic forces of the subconscious, the biological, the irrational, and the untamable in human nature become the main drivers of the action in “Madame Olga”, while financial problems are merely a materialisation beneath which these forces are concealed”, dramaturge Đorđe Kosić stresses reminding that Bojić’s characters are not the masters of their own destiny.

Milutin Bojić died tragically young at the age of 25, but in just a decade of creative work he left behind an impressive legacy: hundreds of poems, seven plays, and dozens of critical essays - altogether about 1,800 pages of manuscripts.

This will be only the second production of “Madame Olga”  at the National Theatre in Belgrade. The first, and so far the only one, was directed by Vida Ognjenović, and the premiere was held on 20 February 1979.