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DEATH
by: Woody Allen
Directed by Marko Manojlović
Translated by Marko Manojlović
Premiere on 6th May 2005
Running time approx. 1h 5’’
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Cast and crew |
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About the author |
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About the performance |
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Reviews |
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Cast:
Kleinmann: Gordan Kičić
Anna: Cvijeta Mesić
Doctor: Miodrag Radovanović
Gina:Jelena Ćuruvija-Đurica
Maniac: Ivan Pantović/Miloš Anđelković
Hecker, Policeman: Marko Janić
Al: Slobodan Pavelkić
Hank: Miloš Vlalukin
Hans Spiro: Miloš Samolov
Sam: Milena Nikolić
Donna: Ana Marković
Costume Designer: Boris Čakširan
Composer: Vladimir Pejković
Scenic Speech: Ljiljana Mrkić-Popović
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ABOUTH
THE AUTHOR
Allan Stewart Konigsberg, better known as Woody Allen,
was born to Martin and Cherry Nettie in Bronx on the 1st
of December 1935.
He married his first great love, Harlene Rosen, in Hollywood
in 1956. There he soon met his future managers, Charles H. Joffe
and Jack Rollins. Starting with 1958 they signed contracts worth
millions of dollars. Later on, they made agreements in his name,
without any official contract but a handshake.
When in 1956 he became melancholic for no apparent reason, Woody
started visiting a psychiatrist, and even today he visits his
therapist every week. Then came so many ironic comments concerning
psychotherapists.
Diane Keaton and Allen acted together in eight films, while
Mia Farrow and Woody appeared together in thirteen. Woody Allen
has been nominated for Oscar as many as twenty times, but has
won only three Oscars. One of the nominations was for Best Actor
Award for the film Annie Hall (1977). The film
launched Allen. He received four Academy Awards, including the
Best Film and the Best Actor Awards.
Plays by Woody Allen
Woody Allen is not only the author of scripts for the majority
of his films, but has also written at least nine plays. Four
of them have heretofore been published: Don’t Drink the Water,
Play It Again, Sam, The Floating Light Bulb
and Central Park West. The play Don’t Drink the Water
was a great Broadway hit, performed 598 times. However, it received
bad reviews in 1969, when Howard Morris turned it into a film.
Allen did not like this version of his work, and gave his own
TV version in 1994.
When Roberto Ciulli first came to work in Mülheim, one of the
first performances was of the play Death, whose aim was
to draw public attention to Theater a.d. Rühr.
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ABOUT
THE PERFORMANCE…
Marko Manojlović: This play attracted me first by its humour,
and then by its very structure, the centre of the play being
one man who is all the time troubled by the question: ‘What
should I do?’ This is not only a question that people aged twenty
and thirty must ask themselves, but it is also characteristic
of young people who pass from secondary school to university,
and later. That is what drew me to the text, the question ‘What
is my task?’ The answer nobody else can give. It is a question
you must answer by yourself. Everything that is going on can
be looked upon as Keinmann’s growing up, in a way. Simply, one
day life knocks on your door. Woody Allen makes all kinds of
human partnership seem pointless. All of them, in contact with
Kleimann, seem horrendously funny.
I like very much the sound story of the play Death, with
that ending and that shock. All the time we watch Kleinmann
as a very charming character, get used to him, in a way, and
in the end he dies. He dies when he tries to buy himself another
chance. The search for the maniac is a search for the meaning
of life, for life after death. I was talking to Kičić and I
asked him: ‘If we gave Kleinmann another chance, would anything
change?’ Kičić said of course it would not…
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| …Fresh,
and, by our manneristically provincial criteria, very sophisticated
humour "carries" the whole show, and with its help
director Marko Manojlovic and the actors manage to show an excellent
departure from the Belgrade and Serbian reality and to create
a unique phenomenon in the current theatrical life of the city:
a great philosophical essay available to all and not in the
least boring. Respecting the stylistic features of the text
and unwilling to break them by a violent director's approach
of demolition, Manojlovic expertly applies the 'invisible' approach
to directing and lets Woody Allen's verbal artistry and absurd
characterization carry the burden. This kind of approach gives
room to the actors and launches Gordan Kičić into the foreground.
…Kičić is excellent in the role of Kleinmann, the author's alter
ego… In addition to his convincing interpretation of the multilayered
absurdity that permeates an average human life, Kičić manages
to ridicule the hardened 'noir' characters, speaking from the
point of view of the genre, which is a pleasant refreshment
in relation to the acting repertoire in which we have got used
to see him. The other characters merely fit into Kičić's/Kleinmann's
convincing performance, with particular emphasis on Cvijeta
Mesić and Bane Trifunović who round off the circle of Kleinmann's
life and an excellent performance…
Absurdity of an Kleinmann, Ivan Jovanović, YellowCab
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