My Little Corner of the World

Throughout his versatile and fruitful artistic activity the German film director, screenwriter and actor also wrote plays. They may seem like bastard dialogues or stenograms depicting the everyday lives of selected characters, but as in Fassbinder's films, formal purity is not something the author wants to win us over with. He does that, much more, with honesty, precision, immediacy and authenticity while at the same time free of being ''slick'' and likeable, because life isn't that way. By finding in Fassbinder's play the motif they want to address on Gavella's stage, the motif of intolerance towards that which is different, Anica Tomić and Jelena Kovačić, the director-dramaturge duo who have created such productions as ''This Might Be My Street'' (Ovo bi mogla biti moja ulica), ''Leda'' and ''Barren'' (Jalova), want to talk about our (un)readiness to actually accept difference, whether it's gender, ratial, national or religious. It would have been nice if we didn't need theatre conversations like that, but the truth - and there is numerous and recent evidence for it - is quite the opposite: we need them badly. Underneath the outer agression lies something much deeper and perfidious: our rejection to really accept and try to understand someone who differs from us in any way. Even in a discourse like that, 'tolerance' can become a mere slogan, devoid of content and meaning, which many use to hide behind in order to satisfy the imperative of political corectness.

''Anica Tomić and Jelena Kovačić have casted ten excellent theatre actors for their project ''My Little Corner of the World'', based on the famous play ''Katzelmacher'' published in 1968 by the well-known leftist Reiner Werner Fassbinder.'' (Ana Lendvaj, Večernji list)

''Ksenija Pajić dominates on the stage in the role of Gabriela, the chief intriguer. A grand acting energy and drama in her voice. An impressive performance. The only seemingly good-natured character, Inga, is wittily and confidently portrayed by Jelena Miholjević, whose singing brings an urban, cabaret-type tone to the production.'' (Tomislav Čadež, Jutarnji list)

''Over the years we have come to know the director Anica Tomić and dramaturge Jelena Kovačić as a duo of authors who choose to deal with paradigmatic social violence on the stage. (...) As far as actors are concerned, I would single out the brilliant Barbara Nola as the minutely imagined, unbreakable, collected, almost diderotesquely conceived and bitter employer Ema. Also, Antonija Stanišić Šperanda, in whose character of Marija we can sense up to which point is someone, needing the most common human heartiness, considered to be an outsider. (...) Đorđe Kukuljica is a warm, kind-hearted and, precisely because of it, tragic figure of the Stranger.'' (Nataša Govedić, Novi list)

''Gavella Theatre's ensemble has made this production a smooth and exciting experience.'' (Bojan Munjin, Novosti)