With the guest appearances of regional theatres, the Sarajevo National Theatre continued last night, April 11th at 7:30 p.m., when the repertoire of the House on the Riverbank featured the performance of the Macedonian National Theatre’s “The People’s Deputy” based on the text by Branislav Nusic, directed by Egon Savin. The same theatre will today, April 12th starting at 7:30 p.m., perform the play “12” based on the motifs of “12 Angry Men” by Reginald Rose, directed by Sinisa Evtimov.
Aleksandar Mikic emphasized that the play “The People’s Deputy” is still relevant today, socially engaged, and that people have not changed even after a hundred years, and that is in a way discouraging.
“This is the second play in which I play a role in ‘The People’s Deputy.’ The first time I played was right after I finished the academy. Back then, our professor directed the play at the Macedonian National Theatre. It was strange to all of us because the country was still young and not much was known yet about elections, government, opposition… All of it was somehow foggy. But as time passed, ‘The People’s Deputy’ became more and more relevant,” adds Mikic.
The thirteen-member cast includes: Aleksandar Mikic, Darja Rizova, Toni Mihajlovski, Jordan Simonov, Tanja Kocovska, Aleksandar Mihajlovski (recorded voice), Dejan Stamcevski, Sinan Rakip, Skender Berisa, Zekirija Alim, Miroslav Atanasovski, Martin Kitanovski, and Husein Halil.
The drama “The People’s Deputy” was written in 1883 as one of the first comedies of that time.
“The young, nineteen-year-old Branislav Nusic waited more than a decade for his premiere, going from the director of the National Theatre to reviewers, to the police and back, encountering objections over the alleged mocking of ‘fighters for parliamentarism,’ even though reviewers spoke positively about the play. The theme of The People’s Deputy is absolutely relevant,” emphasized Toni Mihajlovski.
Mihajlovski also reflected on regional collaborations and guest performances.
“Theatre is, in my opinion, one big bazaar of ideas and energy. Through guest performances, experiences are exchanged, directors and actors meet, collaborations and co-productions are born. In the future, without a doubt, we need more such exchanges, guest performances, and learning from one another. Everyone brings their own energy and atmosphere and I hope all of that will happen more often and that we will have more joint projects,” he said.
In the play “12” he plays juror number 3.
“Number 3 – the one who sticks to his opinion almost until the end, who does not change his stance. In my opinion, the play actually speaks about the power of the individual versus the mass. I think the most important sentence in all of it is: ‘It takes an enormous amount of courage to stand alone against everyone, even for something you deeply believe in.’ At one moment, one juror has the courage to change the opinion of eleven people – that’s number eight. And my character, number three, when he’s left alone, has neither that courage nor strong enough arguments to persevere and bring them back to what he believes is the truth. The Twelve – this is the most dynamic version I’ve seen. All other versions last three and a half hours, and ours lasts one hour and fifty minutes. And the strength of the ensemble is truly visible. We can freely say – the All-Star cast of the Macedonian National Theatre for this play,” concluded Mihajlovski.
The cast includes: Djordji Jolevski, Gorast Cvetkovski, Toni Mihajlovski, Nikola Ristanovski, Blagoj Veselinov, Aleksandar Mikic, Igor Dzambazov, Jordan Simonov, Nino Levi, Oliver Mitkovski, Vlado Jovanovski, Sasko Kocev, and Tanja Ivanovska.
