DIRECTOR’S NOTE

Our production is an ode to mothers, an ode to all the mothers of this world, but it is also a kind of hymn to family and community. This is a story that reminds us and warns us that we must heal other people’s wounds with love, and our own with humour. These two values are precisely the elements that foster the vitality of a community. In a world of alienation, it is community that has the power to save us. And it must be preserved. Mothers often protect that nest, that circle, but can they do it alone?

Empathy and defiance, or what we Serbs call inat, also play an important role in the survival of both the individual and the family. There is a great deal of the archetypal in our characters, as well as in their situations and relationships. It is precisely the strength of the archetype that helps us recognize, at least in fragments, something of our own personal experience in family pain and laughter. These are very sharp fragments.

There is no need to say much about the macrocosm, because it can be seen clearly and unmistakably in a plate, in tears, in panic, fear and apprehension, in a wallet.

But what happens when a very sensitive and deeply thoughtful child observes and experiences both macro- and micro-level circumstances? Can the power of imagination help us, just as humour can, since both are forces that drive resistance? And yet, can imagination also be dangerous, utterly destructive?

Realism can no longer keep pace with and support the reality of today’s world, which is why we cry out for farce, absurdity and the surreal.

Do we need an extraterrestrial being to make us understand that we need to see and hear one another a little more, to be more mindful of how we treat one another? Because a person is not what they think, say or feel, but what they do to another person. And love is the capacity to give; it manifests itself through the utmost attention, care and even sacrifice.