Sterijino Pozorje 71: eight plays and a quiet return to the canon

On the “Pera Dobrinovic” stage of the Serbian National Theatre, on the opening day of the 71st Sterijino Pozorje, someone noticed the audience sitting deeper in their seats than last May. Not for the dramaturgy, but for a decision long postponed: this year there is no international Circles festival. Goncic’s selection has consciously drawn back inside its own borders and decided to ask what in Serbian drama still works as living tissue.

The festival was opened in Novi Sad by Svetozar Rapajic on May 26, and it runs until June 3. Eight productions in the main selection include, among others, Dusan Kovacevic’s “The Professional” in a Zvezdara Theatre production, “The Cabinet Minister’s Wife” from the Maribor Slovenian National Theatre, and Boris Liljesevic’s “My Theatre” from Atelje 212.

A selector’s hand that brings the canon back

Goncic has chosen an approach that has become rare on the present festival circuit: no thematic cut, no current political sentiment, no “contemporary response”. Instead, he framed his criterion as a fusion of artistic quality with communication with the audience, which sounds like declarative minimalism but in practice means a return to the proven canon.

Hence “The Professional” alongside “The Cabinet Minister’s Wife”, hence “Gospa Nola” alongside the Bosnian “Sine”. Goncic is not staging an exhibition of styles; he is staging an exhibition of texts that have survived.

What is in the competition

The eight plays in competition for the Sterija Award are no random cross-section but a map of institutions that still produce something:

• “My Theatre”, Atelje 212, Belgrade
• “The Humour Central Office”, National Theatre Belgrade
• “The Cabinet Minister’s Wife”, SNG Maribor
• “Gospa Nola”, Serbian National Theatre, Novi Sad
• “Sine”, National Theatre of the Republic of Srpska, Banja Luka
• “The Professional”, Zvezdara Theatre, Belgrade
• “No Noise from Two to Six”, Hartefakt House, Belgrade
• “What Is He Laughing About?”, National Theatre Sombor

What is missing here is just as evident: the independent stages of Belgrade and Novi Sad, which in recent seasons have been producing the most exciting work, are not in the main selection.

Circles have fallen silent

The decision not to mount the Circles programme, Sterijino Pozorje’s traditional international segment, was not announced as a crisis but as a choice. The festival’s management and selector seem to have agreed that this is the moment to consolidate around the core of the festival, which has always been a Serbian dramatic showcase first and foremost.

The consequence is two-edged. Pozorje will have a denser but narrower repertoire over the coming weeks. The audience that used to come for a reference point in a European context is given a mirror this time round, not a window.

This year’s selection foregrounds domestic dramatic production, with the focus on plays that succeed in joining artistic quality with genuine communication with the audience.

The phrase from the selector’s report sounds almost defensive. In it, one can sense the debate the festival will have to open after the awards are handed out.

Three stages for one finale

The Sterija Awards will be presented on June 3 at 8 p.m. on the “Jovan Djordjevic” stage of the Serbian National Theatre. Alongside the main award for an overall production, prizes will be given for theatre criticism (“Miodrag Kujundzic”), the Scena magazine award for theatre studies (“Jovan Hristic”), and the audience award.

The side programme covers the Theatre Triennial in Photographic Art, Book Days with theatre publication launches, exhibitions of stage design, costumes and puppets, and two panel discussions on the state of the profession.

How far this return to “what we have” will open a conversation about what we do not have remains to be seen in the awards week. The selection is honest. The question is whether it is enough.

Does a festival that gives up its international mirror remain a showcase, or does it become a catalogue?