IN THE WORDS OF THE DIRECTOR

Matišić’s play Men of Wax represents one of the greatest bits of proof that the more personal things are, the more universal they are and that the highest form of courage is honesty!

The author uses three seemingly disconnected stories to weave a path through his sins, repentances and atonement, using writing as a form of psychotherapy as well as a confession where he lays himself bare before us which, in turn, allows him to “lay” others bare.

What transpires is that, even when he is writing about others, he is in fact writing his own story.

This pirandelloesque trilogy examines where characters in a play end and real people begin, characters such as “patron saint” and “bastard writer”, “ideal mother” and “molester”, fiction and factography, “professional deformation” and “internal suffering”.

In the world we live in, it is truly remarkable to find someone as brave as Mate Matišić, brave enough to bare himself before the world and clever enough to lay the world around him bare. Guided by his courage and telling his story, each of one of us has found something in the play that concerned us directly.

A kind of twisted realism has allowed us to be just as brave as the author and take liberties with the dramatic flow where imagination becomes more real than documents and reality more absurd than any imagination.

After I first read the play, it did not take me long to realise that the National Theatre in Sombor was the ideal place to stage this play:

The characters in the play seemed as if they had been written for the actors in this ensemble, from the brilliant leading roles to fascinating cameos. It soon became impossible for me to read the play without imagining the actors of this ensemble speaking the lines.

The stage which I find the most beautiful in Serbia, being big enough to be a home to all these characters and their author and, at the same time, intimate enough for such an honest and emotional story.

The organisers and technicians, directors and sound and lighting engineers, stage managers, prompts, set and props designers, all of these people are dedicated to one and the same goal which is to give support to the actors on stage.

Even the location of Sombor in relation to Zagreb, where most of the action takes place,

is close enough to be able to fully understand the mentality where the author draws his entire range of absurdity and humour, as well as tragedy, and yet it is far enough to avoid sensationalism caused by the Zagreb production of the play owing to sections in the text which evidently came from the authors own biography and which he used to write this play and ones that the people of his city are far too familiar with.

It seems I was right in thinking that the theatre management would understand where I was coming from and would perceive all the factors at play and the potential that existed in the combination of this text and this theatre to create something that would be so important for us all.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one because I am well aware that no other place would have given such an opportunity to a young theatre director such as myself to bring his idea to life, from beginning to end.

I would also like to thank Gorčin Stojanović who probably impressed me as an author probably more than he realises.

As I write this, before the opening night, it becomes clear to me that working on this production is one of the most important things for me, not just as a director but as a human being.

Mate has taught me to understand before I judge, to be more forgiving to myself and others but also to be more patient and learn to enjoy the process which will change me as a person.

This is why I am convinced that Mate will also succeed in changing those who come to see the play.

Ivan Vanja Alač