Rehearsals Began for “God’s People” by Borisav Stanković, Directed by Jug Đorđević, Premiere Scheduled for June.

At the National Theatre in Belgrade, rehearsals began for the production “God’s People”, based on the short story collection of the same name written by Borisav Stanković, directed by Jug Đorđević.

The premiere is planned for mid-June on the “Raša Plaović” Stage, and the cast includes Vanja Ejdus, Iva Milanović, Jelena Blagojević, Aleksandar Vučković, Nedim Nezirović, and Novak Radulović.

The Drama Department Artistic Director, Zoran Stefanović, emphasized that the National Theatre was preparing this production to mark two significant anniversaries related to Borisav Stanković, one of the most important novelists and short story writers in Serbian literature.

“This year marks the 150th anniversary of his birth, and next year the 100th anniversary of his death, so we are preparing “God’s People” as part of a broader national commemoration of these important jubilees. With this production, our goal is, in a way, to rehabilitate Bora as a writer who was long considered insufficiently dramatic, even though his work signified one of the three crucial milestones that took our literature from the 19th into the 20th century. On the other hand, in a time of increased tensions, hatred, and general instability in the world, we, theatre people, are trying to show that there is something beyond capital, efficiency, automation, and artificial intelligence. Only we are real. Only we are not artificial. That is why this is a project I believe in and look forward to. Morevoer, this is one of the best teams of your generation that we have,” Stefanović told the artistic team of the production.

Speaking about the work of Borisav Stanković, director Đorđević pointed out that he found it fascinating that all of his stories, actually, belonged to the same universe.

“Everything he wrote is, in a way, interconnected. If, for example, you take “God’s People”, you can trace its elements in Koštana and in Tašana… those characters, destinies, and themes constantly intertwine and coexist throughout his entire opus. When you read his selected works, you have the impression that you are reading one large, unified piece, because everything belongs to that distinctive, fascinating, and somewhat paradoxical world that Bora created. It is precisely in that paradox that I find drama. I believe that every drama essentially arises from some kind of paradox. For instance, with Bora it is interesting that he, as a man, writes about women in an exceptionally sensitive way, which was quite unusual for his time. He also writes about a region situated at the crossroads between East and West, at a moment when the old and the new social orders are colliding. These are all tensions which naturally give rise to drama. What drew me to “God’s People” is something I cannot fully explain rationally – something more instinctive, something you feel in your gut. For me, it was a strongly theatrical story. For that reason, there will be no classical dramatization here, but the approach will be somewhat unconventional. My task in this process is to listen more to that inner instinct than to rational analysis,” Đorđević said, for whom this will be his third collaboration with the National Theatre, following his highly successful productions “A Lullaby for Aleksija Rajčić” and “Madame Olga”. 

As he stated, while working on the production, in addition to Bora’s text, he would also rely on the book “Wounded and Longing” by Robert Hodel, dedicated to the life and work of Borisav Stanković.

“Also, an important part of the performance will be the actors’ relationship to the themes we are opening. The very title “God’s People” suggests that one of the key themes is religion – the relationship between man and God. We also tackle with the themes of death, since the action takes place in a cemetery, which in itself carries a strong paradox: people who actually live in a place of death. Then we have the theme of love – for other people, for one’s motherland, for the place we come from, but also for God. These are all universal themes that may at first seem like commonplaces, but they actually define Bora’s entire body of work. The idea is that through each short story we try to discover how it itself wants to be told on stage. For that reason, the performance will not have a single unified style; each story will find its own stage expression,” director Đorđević said.

The dramaturge is Đorđe Kosić, and the artistic team also includes Andrea Rondović (set design), Velimirka Damjanović (costume design), Nevena Glušica (music composition), Milica Cerović (stage movement), and Dr. Ljiljana Mrkić Popović (stage speech coach).

Producers are Miloš Golubović and Olivera Živković, the stage manager is Ana Zorić, and the prompter is Marija Nedeljkov.