The chronic lack of faith in new texts and new stories puts theater in a losing position compared to the phenomenal stories we are exposed to through TV series and movies every day. Compared to younger generations, this lag in theater is even more pronounced. And fatal. That’s why I see the only salvation for theater in telling phenomenal new stories, and in my professional work, I try to stick to that. If film directors have the freedom to be the complete authors of their works, why shouldn’t theater directors have the same rights more often? It’s a slower and more difficult path of creation, but the results are incomparable. When I first wrote and staged my play, it was equally therapeutic for me and for the audience. Once you feel and get hooked on it, there’s no going back to the old ways. I see my participation in the FAB Community as encouraging young theater authors to “cross” and erase strict authorial divisions, as well as to take a more personal and intimate approach to the creative process.
Patrik Lazić
Theater director and playwright who graduated with honors from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, where he also completed his master’s degree in directing. He graduated in 2019 at the Belgrade Drama Theatre with the play Fine Dead Girls by Mate Matisic. Some of the plays he directed include: Animal Farm (City Theatre Cacak), Can’t pay? Won’t pay! (Istrian National Theatre – City Theatre Pula), The Stone (Belgrade Drama Theatre/Zagreb Youth Theatre)… He stepped into the field of complete authorship with the plays All Happy Families Look Alike Unhappy Families (National Theatre Pirot) and Our Son (Heartefact) in which he presented himself as a complete author. He won the annual award of the Belgrade Drama Theatre for directing the play Fine Dead Girls, the same play won the award for best play at the 9th Festival of Premiere Plays in Aleksinac. He was also awarded a special prize for establishing innovative approaches at the 58th Joakim Vujic Festival and the award for best young director at the TNT festival in Krajova.
Naš sin (Our son)
It is about questioning the limits of acceptance and rejection. After a young man comes out to his parents, they try to live with the knowledge that their son is different. The rituals of the family lunch become a big dramatic twist. The story begins like hundreds of other stories: a mother, a father and a son. For years, maybe forever, no one in that family knew how to say an honest word to anyone. Now the son has grown up, gone to live as far away as possible, and sometimes he visits them – after all he loves them and he needs them, and this time he hopes that honest words will come. Parents also love their son, and they would love him even more, if only they knew what the mistake was, what the reason was and who was to blame for the fact that their child is not “like the rest of the normal world”. Everything would be fine, but the only problem is that the son is already the same as the normal world.
