This is a comedy written by Pero Budak. It’s about night meetings under the window, idle chit-chat accompanied by a glass of schnapps, toasts and gossips that make the life on the country bearable by shortening the time between boredom and habit. Short, but not shallow, it’s a story you have to watch carefully because if you miss anything, three or four question marks will appear above your head and you will reach the end wondering where did the string disappear, but also missing the hidden wittiness of it all.
Director Željko Duvnjak intertwined the actors of Theatrical company New Life with this theatrical candy that melts quickly in your mouth but leaves the sweet, impressive aftertaste, just like cotton candy. All characters are connected by reciprocity and really make a subtle mechanism whose levers and pieces make a whole that needs all those tiniest details to function properly. Marta Crnobrnja recreated the typical scenery of Lika, Nenad Lalović illuminated all those sunsets, dawns and noons, Dvořák plays his Slavonic Dances and Hana Letica dresses the characters in discrete and impressive clothes. The omnipresent schnapps of unknown origin, but also Milenko Zeko’s portrayal of the American Jursan who unwinds the ball of string and comes back to his Roža, Dajana Biondić, who never got over him although she was already prepared to settle down with crude but honest Mijat, also known as Igor Kučević. The false Radojko, Matija Major, fathers false Roža’s daughter Vranjica, Ružica Drenski, while his real daughter Anica, Suzana Bliznac, waits for real Rade who comes from America. Maid Jeka, Ružica Domić-Lalović, gets engaged to Ilija, Marijo Gliba, who comes to her at night without any suspicious intentions. Confusion and solution are brought to you by nosey Josina, Vojin Perić, and his grumpy know-it-all wife Antuša, Anita Matković, who doesn’t really like schnapps but still takes a sip whenever she has a chance.
To each his own, he who can pay gets to play, friends can stay and everyone else can go away. Let us all be healthy and cheerful! Cheers!
Vojin Perić
Premier: November 2017.
Special thanks to the Budak family on the given right to perform the play “The Ball of string”.