Review:
JENUFA, HER STEPDAUGHTER: Originally entitled Her Stepdaughter, Preissova shows how a bourgeois, mill-owning family in a narrow-minded Catholic community is caught in the toils of sexual betrayal, murder and forgiveness. --London Evening Standard
THE BELGRADE TRILOGY: It's this twenty-something generation that Biljana Srbljanovic has starting over in new countries where they don't know the language, have no money, and where their academic degrees and ethnic heritage are looked at with derision. It's these young academics, professionals, and artists who are upset by a war they don't agree with -- not so much because of its atrocities, but because of its disruption in their lives -- that Ms. Srbljanovic has pushed to the edge of sanity in a disturbing, brooding drama with surprising bits of dark humor. It's angry, determined, despairing, cynical, and brims with a sadness of unfulfilled potential. Perhaps not what everyone desires to rush out and view for an evening of theatre, but it's not designed to make you feel light, it's designed to make you think. Set up as three distinct, yet inter-related stories, Belgrade Trilogy takes place on the same New Year's Eve in three apartments in Prague, Sydney, and Los Angeles. Each of the stories is a different tale, as a group of Serbs meets to ring in the New Year, discuss their lives, and grapple with life in the Capitalist West. As they fight, feud, lie to each other, and begin to crack under the tension, it becomes apparent that the connecting thread of each story is a young, Serbian woman named Ana Simovic who makes a momentary appearance in the final minutes of the play. --Curtain
THE TENDER MERCIES: This new play must rank as one of the most powerful in recent years. What marks Vujovic's drama out is the fascinating way it demonstrates how language can become an effective weapon of war. The language buzzes with colloquial fizz as playwright Sladjana Vujovic mimes mundaneness of evil with playful wit and measured menace. An unflinching look at the ways in which war robs everyone of their humanity - from the prisoners to the soldiers who captured them. A major talent. --The Scotsman
THE BELGRADE TRILOGY: It's this twenty-something generation that Biljana Srbljanovic has starting over in new countries where they don't know the language, have no money, and where their academic degrees and ethnic heritage are looked at with derision. It's these young academics, professionals, and artists who are upset by a war they don't agree with -- not so much because of its atrocities, but because of its disruption in their lives -- that Ms. Srbljanovic has pushed to the edge of sanity in a disturbing, brooding drama with surprising bits of dark humor. It's angry, determined, despairing, cynical, and brims with a sadness of unfulfilled potential. Perhaps not what everyone desires to rush out and view for an evening of theatre, but it's not designed to make you feel light, it's designed to make you think. Set up as three distinct, yet inter-related stories, Belgrade Trilogy takes place on the same New Year's Eve in three apartments in Prague, Sydney, and Los Angeles. Each of the stories is a different tale, as a group of Serbs meets to ring in the New Year, discuss their lives, and grapple with life in the Capitalist West. As they fight, feud, lie to each other, and begin to crack under the tension, it becomes apparent that the connecting thread of each story is a young, Serbian woman named Ana Simovic who makes a momentary appearance in the final minutes of the play. --Curtain
THE TENDER MERCIES: This new play must rank as one of the most powerful in recent years. What marks Vujovic's drama out is the fascinating way it demonstrates how language can become an effective weapon of war. The language buzzes with colloquial fizz as playwright Sladjana Vujovic mimes mundaneness of evil with playful wit and measured menace. An unflinching look at the ways in which war robs everyone of their humanity - from the prisoners to the soldiers who captured them. A major talent. --The Scotsman
About the Author:
The authors range from the first Czech female dramatist writing in the 1890s whose play became the basis for the opera Jenufa, to the emerging voices from the changing nations in Central and Eastern Europe today.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.