HAMLET
William Shakespeare
Director Dušan Jovanović

Translation by Živojin Simić and Sima Pandurović
Addaptation of translation          Miloš Krečković
                                                   Filip Vujošević

Premiere:       1 August, Citadela, Budva / 5 October, Main Theatre JDP, Belgrade in 2005

Dancers / Ghosts:Branislav Jevtić, Katarina Mitrović, Kaća Todović, Ivan Pantović, Stefan Buzurović, Lazar Dubovac

Set design               Jasna Vastl
Costume design      Bjanka Adžić-Ursulov
Composer                Drago Ivanuša
Choreograph           Deneš Debrei         

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:

DUŠAN JOVANOVIĆ graduated French and English language and literature from the Faculty of the Philology in Ljubljana and Theatre directing from the Academy of Theatre Arts in Ljubljana. Jovanović works as a professor of directing at the Academy of Theatre Arts in Ljubljana.
He writes dramas, radio dramas, TV screenplays (for TV dramas and serials), news articles and essays. Dozens of his works have been published and staged: Ludaci (Lunatics), Život provincijskih plejboja posle II svetskog rata (The Life of a Provincial Playboy after the Second World War), Žrtve mode (Fashion Victims), Igrajmo tumor u glavi (Let’s Play Tumor In Head), Oslobodjenje Skoplja (The Liberation of Skopje), Karamazovi (Karamazovs), Vojna tajna (Top Secret), Vikor ili Dan Mladosti (Victor or The Youth Day), Zid, jezero (Wall, Lake), Don Žuan u agoniji (Don Huan in Agony), Antigona, Ko to peva Sizifa? (Who sings Sisyphus?)... His plays have been performed in many ex-Yugoslav theatres (in Ljubljana, Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Skoplje, Novi Sad, Subotica, Rijeka, Split...) and also translated into Polish, German, Hungarian, Czech, Italian, French, Macedonian, Serbian, Slovakian...).
He has directed more then 80 theatre performances (Cankar, Krleža, Nušić, Smole, Kovačević, Hieng, Svetina, Šeligo, Ionesco, Vitrak, Schiller, Shakespeare, Bühner, Strindberg, Gorky, Chekhov, Gombrovič, Havel, Shepard, Albee, O'Neil, Moliére, Misse, Bulgakov...).
He won many most important theatre awards for his plays and theatre directing in ex-Yugoslavia. Dušan Jovanović lives and works in Slovenia.

Reviews

“The summer of 2005 will be remembered by one of the best versions of Hamlet in this country, and in its predecessor as well. Both of them are important, for what director Dušan Jovanović is making is precisely an attempt to reaffirm the theatrical togetherness which has, as he believes, survived in spite of the butchers who trade in politics… Starting with a pathos with which he stubbornly defends the field of poetic tradition, Mićanović goes through a series of transformations in the domains of gesticulation, rhythm, sound. Like a top sportsman, he rearranges his strength, quickens and slows his pace so that, when the finish and the crescendo come, he has gone through several forms of Hamlet’s intellectual and physical being. He guides the torment of a man who must kill vengeance in himself through the most diverse moral and physical temptations. He is convincing in his defence of the all too soon mature philosopher Hamlet, as well as in the bursts of his unruly temper, which sometimes sees the bright side to life. The fatigue of a young man surprised by a tragedy alternates with gusts of nevertheless wild winds in his lungs. Mićanović can do everything:  walk his voice from a falsetto to the deepest tones, reject his subdued wisdom and fly through the air…”
Branka Krilović, A Break for Hamlet, Politika

“… Jovanović brings to the stage the executor and the victim of (both) these missions. Hamlet, created by him (and Dragan Mićanović), enters the stage as a sad, unhappy, tearful boy, confused by the atmosphere at home/court, deeply hurt by his mother’s quick change out of mourning into a wedding dress. And as the story and the play go on, as the ring of pressure and demands for revenge tightens around the young prince, we witness a majestic, moving transformation of this character (towards rebelliousness, then insight, all the way to the bloody, tragic outcome and reconciliation), an outstanding psychological study reaching its climax in the magnificent, auto-cathartic scene of the Mousetrap, perhaps the best and certainly the most inspiring in all the Hamlets I have seen so far. Ironic and self-ironic  to the point of self-injury, intellectually and physically jovial, witty and moving, a “hot head”, but capable of cold calculating, a guy who passionately loves and hates and – forgives… all this is Mićanović’s Hamlet who has shaken us to the core… The rest is well known: Shakespeare, congenially read by the director as “our contemporary”, not the way Jan Kot saw him, but the way the guru of postmodernism, Derrida, interpreted it. A performance fully justifying the expectations, voiced in advance and before the premiere, that it was going to be the theatrical event of the season…”
Darinka Nikolic, The Play of the Giants of Acting, Dnevnik.

Festivals and Prizes

- Festival Budva City Theatre in August 2005

For the role of Hamlet, Dragan Mićanović received the Award for Theatrical Creation “Grad teatar”. He is the nineteenth winner of this prestigious award.

- International Theatre Festival MESS Sarajevo in October 2005

top