Resumen de Miguel de Cervantes in Serbian theatres
By studying the presence of works of Miguel de Cervantes in Serbian theaters, in the first part of this article we have tried to show the place and importance of theatre plays of the great Spanish writer within his entire opus. Researching various theatrical studies, monographs, almanacs, yearbooks and the repertoire of professional theaters in Serbia since their foundation, we have found out that various plays based on Cervantes’s texts – especially his Entremeses and his novel Don Quixote – or used as the basis to create new plays were staged in the XX and XXI century.
A solid structure of Cervantes’s dramatic work shows that he has never renounced his distinctive humor and his need to deal with human nature as the supreme value of both theater and life, accepting it with all its strengths and weaknesses, even when he aspired to get closer to Lope’s technique and his rhythm of unceasing action. In other words, Cervantes’s work is today unimaginable without its plays, generated under the influence of valuable skilled dramaturge and one of the first Spanish professional actors, Lope de Rueda, and with a deep faith in the value of dramatic forms and the importance of theater for an individual and the society in general.
Cervantes has appeared at the theater scene in Serbia almost a century ago.
Directors and managers used to enrich the repertoire of their theatres with various versions of his work in different socio-historical moments of this country, with diverse motives: the identification of his words in the current circumstances or the rebellion against the routine, stereotypes and lies; projections of the Iberian peninsula history to the Balkan, the fate of a human being today etc., by showing that one should not give up his dream but should strive for its fulfillment, no matter how hard the path gets.
Our research will show that Cervantes has been present in Serbian theaters in drama, music and ballet performances, at various moments of their history. Special contribution to this text has been made by seven theatrical artists who participated in staging Cervantes’s works on Serbian stages, and who offered, in direct contact, a great deal of information that have not been published before. Our interlocutors were theatre directors Kokan Mladenović, Nebojša Bradić and Voja Soldatović, playwrights Branislava Ilić and Željko Jovanović, choreographer Vera Obradović and actor Tihomir Stanić, and their testimonies were of the utmost importance for our investigation.
