Rehearsals of the Play "Fathers and Forefathers" Started Which Will Premiere Early in April on the Main Stage of the National Theatre in Belgrade
6 February 2023
The first reading rehearsal of the play "Fathers and Forefathers", based on the famous novel of the same name by Slobodan Selenić, dramatised by Kata Đarmati and directed by Veljko Mićunović, was held on February 4.
The cast members are Miloš Đorđević (Milutin Medaković), Nikola Rakočević (Stevan Medaković), Aleksandar Vučković (Mihajlo Medaković), Vanja Ejdus (Elizabeta Medaković), Vanja Milačić (Rahela Blake), Sena Đorović (Nanka), Iva Milanović (Jelena) and Nikola Vujović (Vidosav Prokić).
The artistic team also includes Zorana Petrov (set designer), Marija Marković (costume designer), Nevena Glušica (composer), Ljiljana Mrkić Popović (stage speech) and Jasna Saramandić (assistant set designer).
One of the most significant novels of contemporary Serbian literature, "Fathers and Forefathers" by Slobodan Selenić (1933-1995), synthesizes the national experience and establishes a rational view of the corpus of themes that most often appear when reflecting on the status of the Serbian realistic and mythical situation.
"Every good literature always contains some reflections related to the present day, which is the case here as well." What is timeless for me in Selenić's novel, and it is also very important for dramatisation, is actually that duality that I feel all the time, as well as the maladjustment to diversity and the broad story of legacy. Legacy for posterity in terms of identity, ideology. Digging up the past that constantly haunts us, that is misused. This is, in my opinion, a deeply intimate and very emotional family drama. In this sense, through the play, I would first of all like to tell the story of the end of a lineage", the young director announced, who after Camus's "The Misunderstanding" (2011), will be directing for the second time at the National Theatre in Belgrade.
Veljko Mićunović graduated in theatre directing at the Belgrade Faculty of Dramatic Arts, in the class of Prof. Egon Savin. On various stages in Serbia and Montenegro he directed the plays "A Roaring Tragedy", "Death of a Salesman", "Feast", "Kafka Machine", "Democracy", "Worker's Chronicle"...
The premiere of the play "Fathers and Forefathers" is scheduled for April 4 on the Main Stage.
This will be the first production of Selenić's tragic family saga published in 1985 at the National Theatre.
"The same as last year, the Drama Department pays attention in its repertoire, in addition to original dramatic texts, also to dramatisations of important novels as an equally inspiring stage communication with the audience. After nearly forty years since the publication of the novel “Fathers and Forefathers” and the social and political upheavals that took place during that period, the characters’ destinies and events of this exceptional Serbian novel certainly deserve a new theatrical reading from the point of view of members of the younger middle-aged generation, who will see the period in which the novel is set with a completely different experience," says Molina Udovički Fotez, the Artistic Director of the Drama Department.
