Milena Marković’s play The Doll Ship, directed by Ana Tomović and produced at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad won the Sterija Prize for the Best Play Production and the Critics’ Round Table Award at the 54th Sterijino Pozorje Theatre Festival held in Novi Sad from May 23-June 5. The play’s production also received the Sterija Prize for the Best Contemporary Drama Text, Darko Rundek won the Best Original Stage Music Award, while actors Jasna Djuričić and Radovan Vujović won the Best Actor and Best Young Actor prizes. The competition included 16 national drama and theatre productions. This was young Ana Tomović’s second appearance at the Sterijino Pozorje festival. Her previous participation involved Filip Vujošević’s play titled Halflife in 2006. This production of The Doll Ship has also received an invitation to participate in the next Belgrade International Theatre Festival – BITEF.
 Ana Tomović (1979) graduated from the Belgrade Faculty of Dramatic Art Theatre and Radio Directing Department under the class of professor Egon Savin. She continued her education through a Goethe Institute Sojourn Scholarship with the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg. In Serbia, she had already directed ten or so productions, including Creeps by Lutz Huebner at the Belgrade Drama Theatre, Halflife by Filip Vujošević at the Atelje 212 theatre, Casanova’s Homecoming, adapted from the novella by Arthur Schnitzler at the Serbian National Theatre, The Doll Ship by Milena Marković at the National Theatre, Monogamy by Stella Feehily at the Sombor National Theatre, The Wozzeck-Hinkemann Case, after the texts of Georg Buechner and Ernst Toller at the Bitef Teatar theatre and Ronald, Please Understand Me, by Filip Vujošević, a production premiered at the National Theatre in Belgrade in late May of this year. Ana Tomović is the recipient of the Best Director Award at the Joakimfest in 2005 for Stella Feehily’s play titled Duck, produced at the Kraljevo City Theatre.
Congratulations on your noteworthy success at the recently held Sterijino Pozorje festival. What was your goal when you began ‘navigating’ The Doll Ship?
– It is, first of all, important to note that as I took up work on the production of The Doll Ship I had no clear plan as to where I wished to end up – I just embarked on the journey. My experience of this piece conjured a sense of certainty and great uncertainty. This is an unenviable situation for a director to be in, but at the same time it is one of the greatest excitements because it is both inspiring and points towards genuine exploration. In a very poetic and brutal manner – through interaction with various fairytales – the text invokes the fate of a female artist, a special woman with whom any of us can identify. And, like the great heroines, she treads along her own path, removed from the well-trodden and secure social paths, seeking her own identity and the sense of her being. This woman carries within her a miracle, but also a monster and directly confronts her demons. She leads an atypical life that ultimately leads her to the point we all fear – that she will end up alone, that she will turn into the witch from the Hansel and Gretel fairytale. All the beauty and tragedy of a truly seeking spirit is contained in this powerful drama by Milena Marković. It simultaneously offers frightful as well as enchanting images, and is in a way the author’s very own intimate narrative. To me, it also represents an intimate confrontation with myself.
What is it that ultimately pleased you the most with regard to this production?
– It was very challenging to conduct a search for the underlying key of this play. Ultimately, I am very satisfied with the measure of freedom in the style and dramatic evolvement that I created working together with the actors that in the end resulted in an authentic sense of unity and emotion.
In what way do the fairytale structure and its characters correspond with young people of today?
– Like myths, fairytales are the greatest truths we have about life. They reflect our striving towards completeness, towards seeking out the truths about ourselves and life. At a conscious or subconscious level, a fairytale character’s path forms the underlying fabric of each and every work of art. To think that fairytales are merely stories for children is a misconception, because they tell us about the harshness of life for which we must prepare, about great distances that need to be covered and great challenges that need to be overcome on the path of life. In this context, fairytales today, as always, communicate with every generation.
Judging from the titles you have opted to do, it would appear that you are interested in the real problems of young people today. Does the contemporary output of plays supply sufficient material for young directors to address the major issues and problems of our actual existence?
– One can write only about the things that are a burden and of which one has profound knowledge. Be that as it may, social consciousness of both young playwrights and young directors in our country is increasingly coming to the fore. I think there are many good authors among contemporary playwrights in Serbia.
The play Ronald, Please Understand Me!, which was very successful in its premier at the National Theatre, is one of those plays that dwell on issues that impact our lives today. Are young authors today steering clear of explicit socially-engaging topics?
 – That was the second time I collaborated with playwright Filip Vujošević. The play Ronald, Please Understand Me! is a humorous and stirring tale about six workers employed at the McDonalds restaurant on Terazije Sq. It tells about ordinary disempowered people and the losers of the so-called transition economy who merely seek their place under the sun and attempt to lead some sort of normal life amid the social and moral upheaval that is all around us. In the all-out war for survival that occurs in societies caught in transition, in which adjustments to a different system of thought and work are imposed and that we find so alien experientially and genetically – the characters’ belief that such a large corporate system could define them for who they are and that through their loyalty to it they can become better and more successful people is indeed poignant. Still, what they are after in this merciless struggle is not the “worker of the month” title but humaneness. Filip Vujošević’s play endeavours to provide the answer to the question – Is love possible in the time of transition?
I would not say that our authors are shunning explicit socially-engaged themes. Almost any subject here is socially engaging – from the taboo subject of the status of the war veterans and the disabled to topics relating to family life, because today family has become a highly endangered entity. Young authors predominantly write about these things – about dysfunctional families in Serbia and various forms of misfortune that resulting from them.
The fact remains, however, that theatre should be much more involved, and by treating taboo subjects stemming from our recent war past, can contribute to society confronting the consequences of war, regaining awareness as well as assisting in the healing process.
Is your participation in the Sterijino Pozorje and BITEF festivals, as well as your work in the major theatre houses in Serbia, a lone exception or should it be taken as a sign that young directors are now more often being offered the opportunity to work in major theatre houses?
– It is not an exception. The fact is that a whole new generation of directors and playwrights has appeared on the scene in Serbia and that young creative artists are being given considerable room to work. Of course, a sort of natural struggle between generations continues. Nonetheless, it is also a fact that the participants in this year’s Sterijino Pozorje were predominantly my peers – representatives of this new generation – and that a large number of very exciting, powerful productions could be seen that differ from the mainstream productions we’ve witnessed thus far. I am very pleased by this because there has to be a critical mass if any progress is to be made. Our country has been in social and cultural isolation for the past 20 years. The consequences of this situation are observable primarily in the limitations of young authors to travel and gain experience elsewhere. This is why, in a way, we are condemned to some sort of unventilated, purely theoretical form of reasoning. But the situation is at this time being drastically altered in that there is great passion on the part of young directors and playwrights, and I am highly pleased to be able to learn the most by watching the productions of my peers.
Did your previous (the first) participation in Sterijino Pozorje influence in any way your subsequent work and career?
– Yes, my first participation in the festival three years ago, as quite a young director with the production of the play Halflife, had a positive effect on my career. My subsequent cooperation with the Serbian National Theatre originated from there. The Serbian National Theatre has demonstrated great confidence in me by entrusting me with big challenges that have significantly impacted my development. It is important to feel strong backing because it increases both ambition and results.
To what extent did the academic sojourn at Thalia Theatre in Germany have a bearing on your perception of contemporary theatre and on crafting your own distinctive ‘manuscript’ as theatre director?
– If one is to embrace quality in actively working in a profession, and this is especially true for young creative artists, then one must remain open to various influences and draw on knowledge from different sources. My stay with Germany’s leading Thalia Theatre in Hamburg was essentially a maturing experience for me and, in a professional sense, a liberating one. The German theatre, in my view, is the most exciting, the most radical and the most progressive in Europe. Being part of such a formidable and singular theatrical milieu has expanded my perception and inspired me as director. Parallel to this, it also became clear to me that the theatre scene in Germany maintained such a high standing due to its systematic investment in young playwrights, in ‘discovering’ and lending support to them as well as to a host of other activities that connect theatre with the present moment in time by way of holding various theoretical debates on socially engaging themes, re-examining the position of the theatre in community and a very active attitude towards theatre audiences, especially younger theatre audiences.
How would you describe the role of theatre in our culture and our society?
– It may be described as ephemeral and unsatisfactory, as contrasted to what I’ve just said above. The significance of theatre as an institution in a social environment is beyond doubt. The theatre is a place of genuine human contact, of exchange of ideas, of dwelling on human existence, of a moment frozen in time and of rethinking our place at a time of a general acceleration and chaos. The theatre has a healing mission in society. However, it must not remain closed and self-sufficing; it needs to reach out to its audience by offering dialogue and openness. In our society, theatre is an institution denied to many, as inadequate consideration is given the young and children, which has an impact on shaping new generations of active young theatre-goers. | 
