On 28 May, citizens of Sarajevo will have the opportunity to see the play ‘Maya and I and Maya’ in production of Bitef Theatre from Belgrade.
The play ‘Maya and I and Maya’ will be shown in Chamber Theatre 55 at 8 p.m.
Maya and I and Maya is a regional theatre project which aspires to establish and examine patterns of interrupted cultural ties through an analysis of the crisis of intimist awareness, drawing on the picture-books about Maya, which numerous generations grew up with, and the novel Maya and I and Maya by Sreten Ugričić.
The project about Maya explores the post-Yugoslav legacy and wheter the personal memories can continue the discontinued social and political environment. The most painful topoi of personal memory are problematized within the context of collective memory and present-day reality.
The project draws the inspiration from the novel written by the Serbian author Sreten Ugričić, and original text by Milan Marković and the series of children’s books by the Belgian authors Marcel Marlier and Gilbert Delahaye, illustrated by Casterman. The original name of the heroin was Martine, and the first picture-book: Martine à la ferme (Martine on the Farm) was published in 1954. It was followed by more than 50 books translated into numerous world languages with the heroine changing names (Martinka, Emma, Debbie etc) along the way. Two video games, based on the contents of the first and the eighth book, are dedicated to Maya.
In contrast with the magnitude of the production undertaking, the production concept is paradoxically intimist and therefore avoids or ironical approach to familiar slogans. Maya and I and Maya is a project that discusses/analyses the crisis of intimist awareness and its ideological moulding. Following in the footsteps of the widely known picture-books about Maya, the authors establish modes of searching for the intimism of memories, their porosity and the need to integrate intimate stories in the systems of shared theatre moments and definition of community.
Cast: Maša Dakić, Nevena Jovanović, Jelena Ilić, Miloš Isailović, Damjan Kecojević i Strahinja Lacković.
(D.J.)
(photo: kamerniteatar 55)
