Three, out of a total of four, awards at 14th Purgatorije Mediterranean Theatre Festival in Tivat went to Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Michael Fengler, directed by Bobo Jelčić. The decision was taken by a jury that included Ivica Kunčević (president of the jury), Dubravka Drakić and Stevan Koprivica.
The jury was unanimous in selecting the Yugoslav Drama Theatre production of Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? as the best production of the festival. The jury statement said: Having taken the work by Rainer Fassbinder for a premise, the authors and the ensemble created a production full of poetic and meaningful verticals, a simultaneously funny and tragic nod to the suffering of the so called “little man”, the one who resembles us, a production that achieves a full catharsis, in its original Aristotelian meaning, which is what theatre is all about.
The jury described its decision to give the best actor award to Boris Isaković by saying: Boris Isaković uses the ease of his enormous talent and complete dedication to the art of acting to bring to life the character of Herr R. by taking us through different genres and forms of theatrical expression and bringing them all together in a painful portrayal of an individual entirely destroyed by the society we all inhabit and with which we so fully identify.
Special artistic achievement award went to Bobo Jelčić for his direction of Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? The jury statement said: The approach Bobo Jelčić adopted in directing this production shows what meta-theatre is capable of achieving whilst all the time remaining within the coordinates of a comprehensible and appealing act of theatre. Jelčić successfully blends together the humour, the pain, the politics, the charm and the tragedy by working through every last detail with his actors while reducing the stage language to a minimalist but an extremely effective symbol. The result of Jelčić’s directing style is a production that belongs to absolute theatre such as is rarely seen in our theatres.
The award ceremony took place last night on the Summer stage in Tivat and was followed by a performance of The Glass Neck by Biljana Srbljanović, directed by Jagoš Marković and produced by Yugoslav Drama Theatre. The curtain calls lasted several minutes while over a thousand member strong audience applauded the cast of The Glass Neck.