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POWDER KEG
Dejan Dukovski
Directed by Slobodan Unkovski
Opening night: 18 March 1995
Running time approx: 2h
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 Cast and crew |
| About the author |
| About the director |
| Press reviews |
| Guest performances |
| Awards |
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CAST:
DIMITRY JIMMY Voja Brajovic
ANDJELKO Slobodan Ninkovic
SVETA Dragan Jovanovic
BLAGOJE Branko Cvejic
ALEXANDER Boris Milivojevic
SIMON Dragan Micanovic
ANA Anastasia Radojkovic/Tamara Vuckovic
ANDREY Nebojsa Glogovac
WOMAN Cvijeta Mesic
DRIVER, GUARD Josif Tatic
SVETLE Milica Mihailovic
GEORGY Sergej Trifunovic/Nikola Djuricko
GELE Vojin Cetkovic
DJORE Branislav Lecic/Branimir Popovic
TOPUZ Goran Danicic
BORIS Slobodan Bestic
KYRIL Goran Susljik
MANE Nebojsa Ljubisic
EVDOKIA Mirjana Karanovic
KOSTA Boris Isakovic
NURSE Zlata Petkovic
Set Designer: Miodrag Tabacki
Costum Designer: Angelina Atlagic
Composer: Vlatko Stefanovski
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dejan Dukovski was born in Skopje in 1969. Under the guidance of Goran Stefanovski, he graduated in dramaturgy from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje, where he now works as an assistant on the subject 'Film and TV screenplays'.
Five plays by Dejan Dukovski have been performed on the stage: Balkanski vampir (Balkan Vampire), Siljan-roda (Siljan the Stork), Dzin i sedam patuljaka (The Giant and the 7 Dwarfs), Balkan nije mrtav (The Balkans aren't Dead), Bure baruta (The Power Keg) and Mamu mu ko je prvi poceo (Damn he who started it). After the successful enactment of The Power Keg on the stage of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre and a guest performance at the Biennale in Bonn, the play has been enacted at several dozen European theatres, and Dejan Dukovski together with his professor Goran Stefanovski have become two of the most famous Macedonian playwrights in Europe.
Two films have been made using Dukovski's scripts: the omnibus Light Grey and The Power Keg.
Dejan Dukovski has undergone advanced training in the USA (New York and Ohio) and in Italy.
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ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:
Slobodan Unkovski, professor of Theatre Direction at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje, has directed performances with great success across the former Yugoslavia, as well as in Trieste (Italy), Moscow (Russia), Cambridge (USA), Antwerp (Belgium) and elsewhere.
He made his directing debut at the Jugoslovensko dramsko pozoriste(Yugoslav Drama Theatre) in 1982 with the play The Croatian Faust by Slobodan Schnider, a play that the theatre put on the following year at the Theatre of Nations Festival in Nancy (France). His next great success at the JDP was directing The Theatre of Illusions by Pierre Cornier in 1991, which had international success in Cividale (Italy) and Milheim (Germany). Powder Keg is his third direction at the JDP. The collaboration continued and directed the Tracks by Milena Markovic and Chekhov's Seagull.
He has won many awards and his productions took part at different festivals: MESS (Sarajevo), Sterijino pozorje (Novi Sad), BITEF (Belgrade), Paris, Nancy, London, Caracas, Milheim, Hamburg, Cividale, Copenhagen and elsewhere.
He taught acting and directing as post-graduate courses at the Brooklyn College (New York, USA) and Harvard (Cambridge, Boston, USA)
He lives and works in Skopje.
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PRESS REVIEWS
It is difficult to describe the play since it is brimming with everything the theatre can offer today in its purest form. From desperation a spectacle has been created which has European dimensions and consequently particular significance for us. Therefore, it needs to be seen in order for us to feel how great, exciting, and powerful the theatre can be in satisfying us and explaining our truths and illusions.
Petar Volk: Bure baruta, March 25th 1995
Powder Keg presents a generation of actors in their prime and yet whose talent is already mature. To all the skills of the craft, this generation adds a refined feeling for style and stylization, for the facts of life and their reflection in the mirror of theatrical fiction, and above all a feeling for the game between reality and illusion, and for the spirit of that game which doesn't for one moment lose the precious clasp on meaning.
Feliks Pasic, Vecerenje novosti
The grotesque chain-like connection of everyday cruelty, which the young Macedonian author Dejan Dukovski has put together based on the model of the dialogue from Arthur Schnicler's 'Merry-go-round', accurately replacing the theme of love with the theme of hate. And just as a series of heterogeneous liaisons served the Viennese writer well for his subtle analysis of the incorrigible decadence of that society, in the same way, Dukovski, a hundred years later, explores the soul of the Balkan people, not through laying blame, but instead through creating a continual exchange of the roles of victims and perpetrators
Powder Keg in Rome: Balkan violence in the circle of madness, Mariateresa Surianello, Liberazione, Rome, November 11th 1996
The common theme of the scenes is violence in all its possible shapes, apparently even its innocent forms, which, by the end of each scene, regularly culminates in true psychological and physical terror. Unkovski directs these scenes vehemently and lucidly. He 'neurotises' the scenes to varying degrees and includes associations and quotes, using as a basis comical and sarcastic irony.
Blaz Lukan The violence of all religions and convictions, Delo, Ljubljana, May 13th 1998
The Power Keg touches the most painful themes of contemporary Yugoslavia, the ethic and psychological disintegration of society, which has provoked the cruelest war in Europe since Hitler's time.
Gazeta wyborcya, Poland 1998
People have been killed in all possible ways: by vacuum cleaner, bottle, knife, or by piece of glass. And they have been killed on different places: in the bus, at the tennis court, in train compartment, or on the street. But they have been killed for only one motif: fast solving the problem situation. The gravediggers know best
General Anzeiger, Germany 1996
Slobodan Unkovski is a master director to open the hidden potentiality of the piece. He brings to each of his performances, however, in modified, at least close to the realistic form, something which entered the contemporary theatre from theatre of absurd - the absurdity of existence, dubious capacity, ambiguous feelings, broken communications, absence of reason and mechanical behavior. Shortly, Slobodan Unkovski brings into the performance fantasy and humor, deepens meanings by stylization, liberating performance from naturalistic shackles, strengthens suspense, develops bitter humor and, what is very important, proves that in contemporary theatre it could be shown even something which belongs specially to visual media. With the help of theatrical quotations from movies and TV serials, the performance easily communicates with the younger audience.
Vladimir Stamenkovic, NIN, Belgrade 1995
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GUEST PERFORMANCES OF "THE POWDER KEG"
Macedonia, Skopje, June 1995
Germany, Bonn, Bonn's Biennial, June 1996
Italy, Rome, October 1996
Slovenia, Ljubljana, May 1998
Poland, Torun, May 1998
France, nice, November 1999
Bosnia, Sarajevo, MESS Festival 2001
Columbia, Bogotá, Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro, 2002
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AWARDS
The best performance at the Yugoslav Theatre Festival in Uzice 1996
Actor Sergej Trifunovic as the best young actor at the Yugoslav Theatre Festival in Uzice 1996
Miodrag Tabacki, a set designer, got special award at the First Beinnale of Scene Design in 1997
The award of critics for the best performance at the 8th International Festival "Kontakt" in Torun, Poland in 1998
The award of the audience for the best performance at the 8th International Festival "Kontakt" in Torun, Poland in 1998
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