Ruta festival in Skopje opens with 'Black Gold' on October 26
Six regional productions will be staged at Skopje's Drama Theatre from October 26–31, including a new play by Dejan Dukovski directed by Oliver Frljić.
The international theatre festival RUTA will take place at the Drama Theatre in Skopje from October 26 to October 31, festival director Robert Veljanovski announced. Six productions from regional theatres are scheduled during the week-long event.
Opening night and regional line-up
The festival opens on October 26 with Black Gold, a play by Macedonian playwright Dejan Dukovski directed by Croatian director Oliver Frljić, produced by the Belgrade Drama Theatre. "It is a particular pleasure for us that we can offer a dramatic text by a Macedonian author — which has not yet been staged, does not yet have a performance on stages in Macedonia, but has been staged at the Belgrade Drama Theatre — to the Macedonian audience," Veljanovski said.
On October 27 the Ulysses Theatre from Zagreb, in co-production with the SARTRE Theatre from Sarajevo, will present Ronald Harwood's Who's Afraid (originally "Whose Side?") directed by Lenka Udovički. In Veljanovski's words, "In the leading roles in this production there are two great stars of Balkan theatre of the regional theatre, those are Ozren Grabarić from Croatia and Svetozar Cvetković from Serbia. I hope the Macedonian audience will have the opportunity to enjoy a top achievement of our partners from Zagreb." Ronald Harwood is the British writer who gained international fame with the screenplay for The Pianist, which won an Oscar in 2002.
On October 28 the Youth Theatre Ljubljana (Mladinsko gledališče Ljubljana) will stage The Dragon by Evgeny Schwartz, directed by Macedonian director Nela Vitoshević. Vitoshević recently won an award for best directing, the production took a prize for best scenography (Igor Vasiljević) and best costume design went to Jelena Proković. Veljanovski highlighted the importance of bringing homestage works by Macedonian artists presented abroad, and announced the festival will include an appearance by Slovenian legend Sebastian Cavazza.
Other scheduled performances include the comedy Die Hard Man (original title in program: Umri maški) directed by Admir Glamočak and produced by Chamber Theatre 55 from Sarajevo on October 29; Contra mundum from the Centre for Culture Tivat directed by Veljko Mićunović with Ozren Grabarić on October 30; and the festival closes on October 31 with Phaedra in a production by the Drama Theatre directed by Dino Mustafić.
Organisers also expanded RUTA this year with MonoRUTA — a series of monodramas from partner theatres of the Regional Theatre Union — and will host workshops and lectures by theatre experts. Monodramas will be played at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts at 17:00, with tickets priced at 300 denars.
Ticket packages are sold in blocks: Block 1 covers all six shows for 6,000 denars; Block 2 covers four shows for 5,000 denars; Block 3 contains four shows for 4,000 denars. Regular single-performance prices are 1,500 denars for rows 1–14 and 1,200 denars for rows 15–17. For Phaedra the regular price is 600 denars for rows 1–14 and 400 denars for rows 15–17. The Drama Theatre announced that performances of Black Gold and Who's Afraid are sold out.
Photo: BDP)
