30 may 2024

TEARS OF MEN IN REHEARSAL AT THE YDT

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Rehearsals began today at the YDT for a production of The Tears of Men based on the farces and a short story by Antosha Chekhonte (a comic pseudonym of A.P. Chekhov) adapted for the stage by David Jakovljević. The director of this production is Aleksandar Popovski with a cast including Vojin Ćetković, Sanja Marković, Nenad Jezdić, Miodrag Dragičević, Zoran Cvijanović, Miloš Samolov, Milena Živanović, Teodor Vinčić and Teodora Dragićević.

Dramaturgy by Vesna Radovanović, set design by Vanja Magić, costume design by Mia Popovska, original score composed by Kiril Džajkovski with Ljiljana Mrkić Popović in charge of speech coaching.

The Tears of Men is a working title for a collage piece based on the motifs from four one-act plays – A Joke, A Marriage Proposal, The Bear and Tatiana Repina – and a short story On the Road by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. The characters in this stage play have suffered in love, they are lost in time and trapped in a tavern during an apocalyptic storm. Being thus forced to spend time together encourages conflict, sombre reminiscences and the text is infused with the author’s ironic tone. The common denominator in the selected pieces is the crumbling of the male characters which ends in tears that, even today, are seen as a sign of inappropriate weakness in men who end up being stigmatised and forced to maintain a stiff upper lip. Chekhov described these pieces as vaudevilles even though he was very much aware of the emotional and existential depths lurking in each one of them. The elements of comedy are, on the one hand, a natural consequence of the mundane and ordinary, but are also a progressive and remain a modern commentary on the part of Chekhov on the banality and short sightedness of male chauvinism and the patriarchy as a social order. The storm itself is a metaphor for the chaos, pandemonium and wars of our modern times and it represents everything that will eventually and inevitably come to the surface if tears are held back and pride and shame are the order of the day, all to avoid a show of “weakness” in men.

The production is scheduled to première in October.