A WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR
Aleksija Rajčić, the main heroine of Đorđe Kosić's play, did not have many choices in life. Like all the other women she is surrounded by, and whose lives represent the model by which hers is expected to function, in a world steeped in patriarchy, the only thing expected from Aleksija is to keep silent and endure hardships. The only alternative to a life that, even before it began, was predestined for violence, the impossibility of choice, and thus the impossibility of emancipation or happiness is – death. Through a specific stylistic intervention in which he combines all the supporting characters in a male and female choir, the author of the play singles out Aleksija and her experience, thus putting them in counterpoint with the depersonalized characters of this story, i.e. society, which is the biggest obstacle in this woman’s search for freedom and happiness. In addition to the formal shaping of the text, the playwright also plays with the language, thus skillfully depicting the traumatic life story of a woman who, paradoxically, finds a way out of the vicious circle of violence and ultimate freedom in prison. Although the style and language of this story may lead us to think that it took place some time ago, in some recent or distant past, we unfortunately witness such women's destinies even today. In 2021, a total of 20 murders of adult women in a family partnership context were recorded in Serbia, as well as 16 attempted murders of women, and it is not possible to establish how many women die as a result of enduring violence for many years. Many of these women reported their abusers, but the system did not protect them. In such a system, which has many forms, but which is the least of all on the side of the victim, women often see no other way out but to "take justice into their own hands."
Tijana Grumić
A NOTE BY THE DIRECTOR
When in 1898 Milutin A. Popović published his book “Female Convicts – An Album of the Požarevac Penitentiary Female Ward” it was a historic moment because room was given to female “criminals” at the literary scene to tell their version of the story. This book served as an inspiration to Đorđe Kosić to write the play “A Lullaby for Aleksija Rajčić”. A century and a half later, we are on the National Theatre stage and we listen to the testimony of one of the convicts. Unfortunately, it does not take us long to realise how far from ideal the position of women in the world is, particularly in our country, but when you realise that in our region the narrative in which a woman is a second-class being has been pervading throughout entire history, then staging a play such as this becomes inevitable. Aleksija is the forerunner of destinies of thousands of women whose lives ended in correctional facilities, only because they were driven to take justice into their own hands because, otherwise, justice was out of reach for them. If this summary sounds familiar it is because since the end of the 19th centry to this day little has changed. Aleksijas even in today’s world are forced to stand up for themselves in the same way because the system of protection almost does not exist. And if it does, it is probably lost in a sea of paperwork, legal procedures of presenting evidence, expert witnessing, confrontation and retraumatisation.
Jug Đorđević
