ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

Fifty-six years have passed since the novel The Role of My Family in the World Revolution received the NIN Award in 1969. Firmly rooted in its time and place, and subversive in relation to the social system in which it was created, one might have expected it to remain confined to that era. As a testimony, as a literary document of a historical period, and as a valuable and formally exceptional work of literary history. The novel could also be of interest to sociological and socio-political studies, as evidence that, if censorship in socialist Yugoslavia was indeed as pervasive as is often claimed today, then neither this novel nor the Black Wave in art would have been possible in such a country.

What is unexpected at first glance in the fate of this novel is that, ever since its creation, it has continuously and repeatedly lived a parallel theatrical life. Theatre is a living art, and the life that overflows from Ćosić’s Family seems to leap onto the stage itself, only to happen once again, here and now. Because The Role of My Family in the World Revolution is not a story about the collapse of a family as a result of socio-political upheavals, but, on the contrary, about the survival of a family.

Good evening, and welcome to a family in permanent revolution. In this family, people sing, play music, paint and read; every craft is transformed into art, every meal into a work of art, and every spoken sentence into a verse. The freedom to express one’s opinion, even the most foolish one, is the greatest wealth! Along with bread, freedom is the most important thing in the world, and the free spirit flies unhindered through the kitchen, skips across homework assignments, dozes inside a book hidden behind the stove, peeks out from beneath the quilt and sticks its tongue out at the neighbours.

This family owes its survival to the free spirit of all its members, as well as to the fact that it is neither rigidly patriarchal nor founded upon those most frequently invoked “traditional family values.” It is founded on love, art and freedom, on the immaterial, on a refusal to respect authority simply for authority’s sake, on each member’s inner sense of justice and integrity, and on a critical spirit capable of distinguishing good from evil. When such principles are the spiritus movens, the life they live is always a new river they step into. Change, that essence of life which we so often struggle to accept, is their natural state. Revolution—the free spirit is always revolutionary—is every day of family life, regardless of the revolution taking place outside.

And perhaps the most important thing that allows this extraordinary family, this last place where every life has value, to survive is laughter. Laughter is a shield against fear and darkness; laughter is the song of the free spirit; laughter is a defence against banality. In order to survive, we must laugh.

The creative team of the production