Director: Ozren Prohić
Set Design: Ivo Knezović
Costume Design: Irena Sušac
Music: Srđan Sacher
Stage Movement: Blaženka Kovač Carić
Lighting: Olivije Marečić
Photography: Radomir Sarađen
Dramatis Personae:
Cigan: Boris Svrtan
Pljuga: Ranko Zidarić
Žir: Enes Vejzović
Rade: Predrag Vušović / Filip Šovagović
Flekica: Zoran Gogić
Desa: Slavica Knežević
Zdenka: Bojana Gregorić Vejzović
Crta: Sreten Mokrović
Eva: Ankica Dobrić
Piro: Siniša Ružić
Stage Manager: Ana Dulčić Meštrović
Prompter: Andrea Glad
Organizer: Keka Katona
Premiere – May 6, 2005
It is interesting that Filip Šovagović’s plays – and wherever they were performed, they were praised and gladly seen – have never been staged in Zagreb yet. They were staged by the theatres in Split, Rijeka, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia… but theatre-goers in Zagreb haven’t yet had the chance to see them. That is why ‘’The Birdies’’, staged by Gavella Drama Theatre, are the chance to listen, here in our nation’s largest city, to the stories Cigan, Flekica, Rade, Pljuga, Žir, Desa, Zdenka, Piro, Eva and Crta want to tell us.
AWARDS:
2005, Gavella and Europlakat Fair
- best actress in the season's premieres
- best actor in the season's premieres
2006, 13th Actor's Festival
- the ''Fabijan Šovagović'' award for best actor
''The director, Ozren Prohić, made Šovagović's text completely existential and, with a few dramaturgical cuts, gained an ideal pace for the performance, emphasizing what is most important and using musical quotes to contextualize the whole plot, nuancing, at the same time, every character and enriching everything with witty direction... The brightest pearl of this production are really the actors who, with their remarkable performances, truly gave life to Šovagović's characters making them people ''of flesh and blood''... The ideal casting, great text and wonderful directing guarantee this performance a long life on the stages and a full house.'' (Katarina Kolega, ''Slobodna Dalmacija'')
''Do you need to see ''The Birdies'' by Filip Šovagović in Gavella, directed by Ozren Prohić? Most definitely! Šovagović isn't a writer that is read, but a writer that is performed.'' (Želimir Ciglar, ''Večernji List'')
''Three remarkable actors have given this performance its entire tone: first and foremost, Boris Svrtan in a wonderful, extraordinary role of Cigan, then Predrag Vušović as a grudging, disillusioned actor Rade and finally Sreten Mokrović as an arms-dealer Crta – a character who's been given a relatively schematic personality of ''a war profiteer'', but whose interpreter succeeded in transforming him into a powerful and impressive creation. ... Šovagović's ''The Birdies'', directed by Ozren Prohić and performed by the Gavella Drama Theatre are an interesting and provocative performance, which was greated at the premiere by a heartfelt, well-meant, good-humoured audience inclined to enthusiastic responses to some (truly funny) lines.'' (Boris B. Horvat, ''Vjesnik'')
''Šovagović has chosen the beckettesque absence of meaning with which he fills the empty everyday life of his characters. These are interrupted by music videos which follow one after the other... It is a living and spirited, but also a difficult performance, in which, it seems, there is more music than acting, but which offers a few brilliant acting interpretations, first and foremost, Boris Svrtan and the imaginative Slavica Knežević...'' (Saša Drach, ''Jutarnji List'')
