Actors from Serbia and Kosovo have joined forces to stage a joint production of the Shakespeare play in a bid to promote mutual understanding and connections.
Belgrade
The collaborative version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ will be staged by the end of the year in both the Serbian and Albanian languages, its organisers told a press conference in Belgrade on Sunday.
“The play will be performed in two languages in the same time – Serbian and Albanian, plus we will have English version. The play will deal with three topics –hate, love and language as a barrier, but also as an ability to meet,” said prominent Serbian actor Miki Manojlovic, the director of the play.
“We already had a [press] conference in Pristina, [where] we were very well accepted. A lot of actors wanted to join our project, coming from the towns of Pristina, Pec and Mitrovica,” he added.
The project is a part of a joint effort by two organisations, Belgrade-based Radionica Integracije and Pristina’s Qendra Multimedia, to get performers from Serbia and Kosovo to work together on the stage.
The roles of Romeo and Juliet will be played by Kosovo’s Albin Ukaj and Serbia’s Milica Janevski.
Anita Mancic, who will play the Nurse, said she only accepted the role because of the ideas behind the production.
“I was attracted by the fact that we are talking about love, hate, and language and how much we don’t understand each other,” Mancic said.
Kosovo playwright Jeton Neziraj, known for his play Patriotic Hypermarket, co-written with Milena Bogavac, which calls for honest communication between Kosovo and Serbia, is also part of this project as a director of Qendra Multimedia.
“We want to do this and a lot of people in Pristina want this to happen… And a lot of them want this because Miki [Manojlovic], who is much respected in Kosovo, is involved,” Naziraj said.
Serbian actor Goran Jeftic said that despite the fact that the two societies are divided, artists needed to cooperate with each other.
“There have so far been sporadic contacts, individual performances, but this project is a reflection of the common human need to tell a significant story,” Jeftic said.
