Voltaire
CANDIDE or OPTIMISM
Voltaire
Candide, ou l’Optimisme

Directed by Aleksandar Popovski

The playtext of Candide or the Optimism represent an adaptation by Aleksandar Popovski and Miloš Krečković of Voltaire’s novel by the same title. It is based on the dramatisation by Jan Cziviš, Alena Vostra and Jaroslav Vostry, translated from Czech by Tihana Hamović. The adaptation contains excerpts from Voltaire’s novel (translated by Milan Predić) and his Dictionary of Philosophy (translated by Djordje Dimitrijević).

Premiere: 14 November 2008 on Ljuba Tadic Stage at 8 PM.

The Narrator from Paraguay

ABOUT PERFORMANCE

At the time when illusion was imposed upon us as a general condition of the country, theatre had the task to tear up that fake balloon and show what reality really looked like. Nowadays, illusion is abolished. Not only illusion, but also the system of values. With no system of values, everything in life appears to be black or grey. Candide attempts to find a bright spot. We can call this quest for a bright spot an illusion. The quest for a bright spot in life, even if it’s called an illusion, is extremely important. Without it, we don’t exist. It is like the soul. Illusion is the soul, all that remains is the body. We can also come up with another word. That word can be hope, emotion, imagination, dreaming…Long forgotten categories, every one of them. We have abolished the category of imagination because it has no utilitarian value in this pragmatic world. What is the price of imagination? We do not know. And therefore it has no value. My silent revolution is an attempt to bring people back to the terrain of emotion they will recognise in my show and search for in their own lives.

Aleksandar Popovski

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ABOUT AUTHOR

VOLTAIRE (1694-1778) A French author and philosopher. Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet in a wealthy Parisian family and was educated at the Jesuit school Louis Le Grand. His satirical writings brought him into exile in England (1726-29) where he was introduced to philosophical ideas of Newton and Locke. He returns to France and publishes Lettres philosophiques (1734, Philosophic Letters On The English) admiring England's liberal spirit, and is forced to retire to the country to evade arrest. In the 15 years that followed he lives in Cirey, in the company of the learned madame du Chatelet. During seventeen forties he is looked favourably upon by the king and is employed as the official historian of the court. He is elected a member of French Academy. He visits the Court of Frederick the Great in Prussia in 1750. In 1755 he settles in a castle near Geneve, where he publishes Essai su les mouers et l'esprit des nations (1756, Essays On The Customs And  Spirit Of Peoples), and Candide, ou l' optimisme (Candide or Optimism, 1759). He acquires an estate in Ferney, on the French soil very near the Swiss border. A marginal spot in the country turns into an intelectual centre of Europe. He publishes his satirical Philosophic Dictionary (Dictionnaire philosophique, 1764). He returns to Paris just several months before his death, only to be dubbed the greatest luminary of French enlightenment and the bravest advocate of liberties, freedom and tolerance of his generation.

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ABOUT DIRECTOR

ALEKSANDAR POPOVSKI. Productions: Marius Ivaskevicius Close City (Teatro Stabile Sloveno, Treste); Shakespeare Midsummer Night's Dream (City Theatre „Gavella”, Zagreb); Metamorphoses, adaptation and dramatisation of the work by Ovid (KUG, Graz); Slavko Grum Events in Goga (SNG Celje); Elen Peg New Friends  (National Theatre of Northern Greece, Thessaloniki); Ana Lasić Antirides (SNG Ljubljana); Moliere Don Juan (Drama Theatre Skopje and Ohrid Summer Festival); Biljana Srbjanović Alice in Wonderland (Atelje 212); A.P. Chekhov Three Sisters (National Theatre Bitolj); Shakespeare The Tempest (Turkish Language Stage of Minorities' Theatre in Skopje); Martin MacDonagh Pillowman (SNG Celje); A.P. Chekhov The Cherry Orchard (National Theatre Belgrade); Georg Buchner Danton's Death (Teatro stabile di innovazione del FVG – Udine);  Dracula, based on the novel by Bram Stoker, adaptation and dramatisation by Aleksandar Popovski and Dejan Dukovski (SNG Maribor); Don Quixote,  based on the novel by Cervantes, adaptation and dramatisation T.Kosi/J. Vencelj/A. Popovski (SNG Maribor); Dejan Dukovski Balkan Is Not Dead (Drama Theatre, Skopje); Dejan Dukovski The Powder Kegg (Satire Theatre „Kerempuh“); A. M. Coltes Roberto Zuccho (Atelje 212), Goran Stefanovski Wild Flesh (Drama Theatre, Skoplje)…

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REVIEWS

Optimism and Stupidity
A good, rare, fantastical play, developed between an obstructed romance and a mob.

Muharem Pervić, «Politika»

Answers and Agreements
A bitter truth is beautifully wrapped, firstly into the decor of Sven Jonke. A slightly slanted wooden cube looking like those wooden forts from the movies, but only here a plank or two would now and then fall off, creating constantly new entries and exits. Well, it’s probably the same as in life – too boldly boarded worlds apparently looking like jails, only not in function when they really need to provide protection. And, when you hope they’ll be there. The next layer of the beautiful wrapping is the actors’ performance; a superior and charming play with the persiflage in the style of – I know I’m a cartoon, but I know that I am irresistible too. And, I very much enjoy in this game...           
It could be startling in its naughtiness, for those who are able, just as Gordana Đurđević, led by the director of course, who stopped the whole action to tell the story of her life in a 15-minute monologue... as from the 1001 Night. And, receive a grand applause for it...  
Aleksandra Glovacki, «Večernje novosti»

The Return of Faith
As a very successful play we can sort out the performances of Nataša Tapušković in the roles of Candid’s darling Cunigunda and the Marquise, as well as the inspired and layered performance of Gordana Đurđević, in the roles of the Old Woman and the Misses, and certainly the acting brilliance of Dragan Jovanović in the role of the Doctor. The play of Bogdan Diklić in the role of the Teacher Panglos was also very interesting. Here it may seem that the actor attempted to infuse the character with a lot of personal sympathy towards this odd man. Beside of many other successful performances (Nikola Simić and Mihailo Janketić), the play of Nikola Đuričko, the carrier of the main role, is outstanding because he, unusually, offered a performance more precise than inspired. 
In a certain way and aside of that, this play does in deed recover the trust in the significance of the theatre as such, however small or marginal its powers may be.
Željko Jovanović, «Blic»

The Candid of today, all together with the story of innocence in Voltaire’s time, coloured by the most terrible wars and moral decline, tries actually to be a positive play in a negative time. Voltaire’s observations of the bad condition of the „Best of all worlds“ serve the director Popovski for the lightening of optimism which is totally absent in the entire environment. In this respect, Popovski himself was more than clear after the premiere saying that:” In this contemporary, pragmatic world imagination is abolished as an unproductive category and my silent revolution is an attempt to bring people back to the terrain of emotionality which they will recognize in my play and seek out in their own lives“.
To serve such an idea, the Candid is a God given text about the bizarre nature of human stumbling. The only question is if the people of today, those bestowed with the consciousness of the whole (human) history of nonsense may still find the power for – new envisage. In this respect, the acting of the YDT’s ensemble is, through an almost grotesque minimalism, reduced to an inventory of the historical damage this far, where the main hero – metaphorically speaking – holds his foot in the doorway of a universal cataclysm.       
The scene (Sven Jonke) looks like a shaky world-tower made of planks, plummeting down on itself, while Nikola Đuričko (Kandid), as the boy next door, assisted by the teacher Panglos (Bogdan Diklić) and an entire menagerie of doubtful friends: the old man from Eldorado (Miša Janketić), the Preacher (Goran Šušljik), the Governor (Nikola Simić) and others, tries to journey through the Evil World looking for – love. What is contemporary in all this? In a world which today doesn’t look well at all… the director Popovski offers us hope through the Candid, hope which particularly in this region have the effect of a remedy, if only because of the fact that – one man believes in it.         
Bojan Munjin

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