Partner: Heartefact
Play: Doughnuts (Buhtle)
Playwright: Jelena Krdžavac
Translation session with: Olja Petronić (from Serbian to French)
Meetings: 3-6 July 2025, Heartefact House, Belgrade
Public presentation: 6th July 2025, Heartefact House, Belgrade
Director: Patrik Lazić
Cast: Andrej Nježić, Amar Ćorović, Jana Bjelica, Dragana Varagić, Aleksandar Đinđić
As part of the Playground workshop within Fabulamundi project, director and playwright Patrik Lazić will lead a creative process in collaboration with a group of actors and emerging author Jelena Krdžavac, focusing on the exploration of the play Doughnuts (Buhtle). Jelena attended Fabulamundi Playwriting Europe workshops held in Belgrade. Doughnuts was also selected as one of the standout texts in the 2024 Heartefact competition for Best Contemporary Socially Engaged Drama in the region.
The play centers on a pair of conjoined twins—brothers whose lives and bond become a lens through which the author examines the socio-political landscape of Serbia over the past three decades. Throughout the workshop, the ensemble will delve into both dramaturgical and performative aspects of the piece. We will question how the text can be moved beyond realism—through staging strategies, performative choices, and structural interventions. The aim is to uncover the questions the play raises in collaboration with the actors and to consider potential directions for its further development and future stage production.
The process will also include a dedicated session with translator Olja Petronić, during which we will discuss the challenges of translating this complex and nuanced work into another language—specifically, French. The workshop will culminate in a public staged reading on Sunday, July 6, at Heartefact House in Belgrade.
Doughnuts is a coming-of-age play about conjoined twins born at the turn of the millennium. As the story follows their childhood, daily struggles, and the absence of their parents, the brothers offer different perspectives on a variety of topics. Their grandmother is a crucial figure who shapes their world into something less harsh and bleak, while they try their best to cope with the fear of a future without her. A local girl from their hometown helps them explore the concepts of friendship and romantic love. Some of the central themes of the play include identity, individuality, and the exploitation of disability.
Jelena Krdžavac
Jelena Krdžavac was born on August 12, 2003, in Belgrade. She is a final-year dramaturgy student at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in the same city. Her children’s radio drama Echo was featured alongside the winning entry in a Radio Belgrade competition, and her full-length play Doughnuts (Buhtle) was recognized in the 2024 Hartefact competition for Best Dramatic Text.
During her studies, she worked on adaptations of texts by Flannery O’Connor, Bertolt Brecht, David Benioff, among others. Her play The Despised (Prezreli) was performed last year on the main stage Mira Trailović at Atelje 212 in Belgrade.
As a screenwriter, she received an award from the Film Center of Serbia for her feature film script The Gap (Jaz) during the same period. In addition to writing plays, she also writes short stories and poetry. She draws and paints, and for many years practiced martial arts.
The play holds strong potential to resonate with international audiences beyond the context of Serbia and the former Yugoslav region. While there was some initial concern that local references—such as well-known pop-folk songs—might create a barrier to understanding, this can be easily addressed through adaptation. After all, every nation has its own pop-folk culture that follows similar narrative patterns. The author was encouraged to reflect on the inclusion of the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, which serves as the starting point of the play. While this is a powerful and recognizable reference for Serbian audiences, it may be unfamiliar to international viewers. Even without that specific context, the play stands as a fully realized work, engaging with archetypal themes that are accessible and meaningful beyond Serbia.
– Olja Petronić
