With four performances on the stage of four theaters in Veles, Prilep and Skopje, Sinisa Evtimov during 2021 was the most engaged theater director, and his performances can be seen during this year.

Theatrical art was almost extinct during 2020. The uncertainty brought about by the covid-pandemic even initiated new video or online theater forms in order to keep the theater alive. Some theaters focused on producing monodramas or chamber plays. After the adopted protocols for work and cultural events, in 2021 the theater revived on the theater stage. It seems that theater workers, as well as the audience, have learned to work and live in pandemic conditions, although the threat of new variants of the virus is still present.

In such conditions, the theater director Sinisa Evtimov managed to stage four plays on different theater stages during the last 2021, which made him the most engaged theater director in the country. In the National Theater "Jordan Hadzi Konstantinov - The Giant" in Veles he staged the play "Four Rooms", based on motifs from the script of the cult film of the same name from 1995.

In October 2021, on the stage of the theater "Vojdan Chernodrinski" in Prilep, the premiere performance of the play "Yes, Inspector - a play with mistakes" took place. Before the end of the year, the Turkish Theater in Skopje performed the premiere of "Lady Tailor" based on a text by Georges Feido, while the Comedy Theater performed the play "Fools (Scotje Curse)" based on a play by Neil Simon with dramaturgy by Darko Jan Spasov.

As a director, Sinisa Evtimov is desired by the theater ensembles, because he manages to have a good communication with the actors and the artistic team during the process of creating the plays, and they then have easy communication with the audience, which is a prerequisite for the play to stay on for a long time. theatrical repertoire. The communication with Evtimov flowed easily in the realization of this interview.

Is this intensive production a regular rhythm of work, or, perhaps, a feat, especially in a time of covid-pandemic with numerous limitations?

- Yes, this was a really intense year professionally. Of course, this is not always the case, nor should it be. This engagement is a consequence of the turbulent pandemic period we are living through. Namely, two of these four projects were scheduled to have a premiere in 2020, but moved for well-known, already annoying reasons.

It was not easy at all, but still, I managed to realize what was planned and given the circumstances and conditions in which we worked, I must conclude that I am very satisfied with the final products.

The year started with the play "Four Rooms" at the National Theater "Jordan Hadzi Konstantinov - The Giant" in Veles. Adaptation of a movie script to a theater scene has often been present in our country in recent years. For what purpose did you adapt the script from this cult film?

- The idea of ​​cooperation has existed for a long time, but this time, the director of the institution, Sasho Dimoski, had a specific proposal for me, which really intrigued me. Namely, he, recognizing my affinity for adaptations of film scripts for the stage, suggested that we try to create a completely new theatrical play, which will be based on the cult film "Four Rooms" by Tarantino and Rodriguez. At the same time, we turned the process into a workshop entitled "From film script to scene". The result is a whole new work, which undoubtedly has references from the film, but lives quite sovereignly on stage, in a new alternative universe, which has more to do with the people and the place where we live, than with the original ideas and settings of the film.

In the Prilep Theater "Vojdan Chernodrinski" he staged the comedy "Yes, Inspector - a play with mistakes". The play is a look at the time in which we live and shows that "we are failing elegantly". What is this attitude based on?

- We have a privilege, or a handicap, it depends on who sees things, to live in a rather crazy time. Not that our generations have the exclusivity of this madness, but still, the fact that we know more than we need about each other brings us to a rather depressing place in the curve of the graph of human history. And paradoxically, we are advancing technologically unseen, while intellectually, morally, and even spiritually, we are in an abyss. The play talks about this and is basically an adaptation of one of the greatest theatrical world hits of the 21st century "The play that goes wrong". The premise of the play is, all the bad you can imagine that can happen while performing one play, it happens here, multiplied by five.

It is a group of amateurs, or rather, theater enthusiasts, who try to get from point A to point B, while facing unprecedented obstacles, which they set themselves. Error becomes a coercive concept and every subsequent decision is, in fact, the elimination of the error, but not the problem. All this, they even think about when to take a break from eating. I hope the parallel is clear, hence the "elegant failure".

Shortly before the end of the year, the premieres of "Lady Tailor" were performed at the Turkish Theater and "Fools (Scotje Curse)" at the Comedy Theater. Did he work in parallel to make the premieres of the two plays happen?

- Yes, in fact we are talking about two projects, which were planned to be released in 2020, but for reasons already well known, we had to move them to next season. Truth be told, the two projects had completely different work dynamics, but, fortunately, we managed to cope with all the challenges that stood in front of us.

Namely, the project "Fools" or "Scotland Curse" is the longest process in my career so far, which is already a quarter of a century. In the active two years of work on this project, we had really serious production obstacles, three changed directors, countless covid-infections, but finally, at the end of 2021, we managed to come up with a product that everyone is proud of. Due to the breaks we had in this process, in the meantime, I realized all the other performances we talked about above. Including "Lady Tailor" in the Turkish Theater, which will remain in my memory as one of the easiest processes I have ever had. A wonderful ensemble, a fantastically professional technical team, which did its best in far from ideal conditions to succeed in the realization of all the set ideas.

How much easier is it to comedy to point out some serious processes that are happening in our country and in the world?

- I think that at the moment it is easiest to conclude that it does not cost anything. It is harder to understand that nothing costs because of ourselves. We live in an era of mitigating circumstances. An era of experts and expertise on any topic. We all know everything about everyone and we all know how to do it and how not to do it. Of course not. And we ourselves are never the problem! My plays always talk about this, whether it is a farce, political satire, drama or any mold you caress. To me, it's all theater, tragedy or comedy is a view of the world and the things that happen in it. I choose to laugh, only then do I get better, laughing at mistakes, learning from them. Self-pity, suffering, pretending to be a victim, these are things that are regressive in my "mindset".

About 40 actors were involved in all these performances. What acting potential do theaters have from a director's point of view?

- It is no secret, nor a novelty, that Macedonia has fantastic acting potential. It is really an honor and a pleasure to work with all these people, who selflessly give themselves on stage and that is seen in the final product. As a director, there is no better starting point than having a team that knows why it is here and that believes in itself and its capabilities. This year I worked in Veles, Prilep and in two theaters in Skopje and I can talk about all of them in superlatives. But I can say the same for every other theater in Macedonia where I have worked.

Some of your plays have survived on the theater stage for years. Probably the record is held by "Suspicious Person" in MNT with more than 150 performances. What is your personal directing principle and methodology in setting up each new play? For example, in "Fools (Scotje Curse)" even through fairytale satire the reality we live is reflected!

- The principle and method are changed or, better said, adapted to the conditions and the given task. I always try to create new conditions, challenges that are unknown, because I think that way, the perspective, the view is different and always fresh. It is really difficult to keep the viewer's attention, and at the same time to always offer him something new. Especially in this particular case, when a critical mass has undoubtedly been created, which is looking forward to my new project. The responsibility is great, to create something that will meet the needs of the audience, but also my personal criteria. My plays play on the stage for a long time due to the fact that today resonates on the theater stage, resonates with characters similar to those sitting in the auditorium, so they are recognized and find beauty in it.

The last question is related to the performing arts, but it is focused on music. You have been part of "PMG Kolektiv" for years, and lately you have been more active with "Canton 6". If directing is a profession, is music a "hobby"?

- That story is interesting, my private adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Theater and music have been intertwined in my life since the earliest years. And, on the other hand, professionally, the two have existed completely separately, for about 20 years. If we have to be formal, my profession is a de facto theater director. I live from it, I love it, I enjoy my work, I'm on stage at home and that's it. Now, in reality, all this allowed me to realize a completely different love of mine, called music.

30 years ago I was a music fanatic, an enthusiast, always waiting for the new album, single, EP, of the favorite band of the moment. Advancement in my theatrical career has allowed me to slowly, over time, progress from a music enthusiast to a musical instrumentalist who is a member of a band and creates, to a later stage, a music producer and composer, with more than 20 releases behind its name, as part of "PMG Collective", "Canton 6" and many other projects signed for "PMG Recordings".

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