The premiere of the play "The Idiot" directed by Macedonian director Andrej Cvetanovski and based on the novel by the undisputed Russian author Fyodor Mihajlovich Dostoevsky was performed at the Novi Sad Theater on January 12.

Before the premiere, the director Andrej Cvetanovski wished his play to help the audience understand the pure innocence of the protagonist, Prince Mishkin, and feel his love and kindness, and the theater director Valentin Wenzel said after the premiere that this is a great return to in relation to post-dramatic theater.

According to the reactions after the performance, their wishes came true. "Through more than three hours of watching the play, which turns this powerful novel into a theatrical action, sounds, images, movements, all the time you have the feeling that something much bigger than ourselves is happening. "Metalanguage is happening, metatext, metatheater - metaphysics", are the first echoes after the premiere.

The author team of the project includes Sergej Svetozarev as a set designer, Blagoj Micevski as a costume designer, Dimitar Andonovski as a composer, and Jovana Rakic ​​as a choreographer. Sergei Svetozarev's scenography is full of mirrors, reflections, dark shadows, frames through which passages, passages behind which people disappear and reappear (like ghosts). All this is enhanced by fantastic original music by Dimitar Andonovski.

Melancholy reigns. The wide large stage of the Novi Sad Theater is an aristocratic house or courtyard, with numerous windows and doors that create the effect of a mirror. The costumes of Blagoj Micevski are multi-layered, faithful to the design of the play and the concept of dark-light, and with their grandeur they add to the epic image of the play.

Almost the entire ensemble of the Novi Sad Theater participates in the play, and the actors gave their bodies and souls to the literary characters, thus achieving lavish creations, technique and talent of many of them. The big four protagonists in the play are Gabor Pongo as Prince Mishkin, Gabriela Crnkovic as Nastasia Filipovna, Robert Ojvar as Rogozin and Judith Laszlo in the role of Aglaja. Besides them in the play play: Attila Nemet, Sylvia Crizan, Agota Ferenc, Daniel Gombos, Istvan Kereshi, Livia Banka, Attila Giritz, Attila Madzar, Daniel Husta, Bence Salai, Teresa Figura and Melinda Shimon, as well as students from A Novi Sad, Roland Laszlo, Daniel Toth, Fanny Dupac, Regina Sabo, Daniel Dudash and Blanca Horvat.

"The story, like the play, is extremely difficult. Zaumna. We become aware of what is happening on the other side of the mirror. The director takes us into the world of the deep psychology of the human soul, where all people are good and shrouded in malice. Novi Sad Theater returns to the classics and the traditional theater. Gabor Pongo as Mishkin re-examines human goodness. The director, guided by the literary template, subtly asks numerous questions about our soul. Is there anyone who can identify with the character of Leo Nikolaevich Mishkin? Is there such an idiot? Is there such an innocent person? Are we worthy of pity? Is there hope in us? "Is there faith in us?" Are the basic questions posed by the play, which will be repeated on January 27 at the Novi Sad Theater.

(The text was published in "Cultural Press" No. 113, in the print edition of the newspaper "Free Press" on January 22-23, 2022)