Heartefact House, Belgrade, premiere 26th December 2024
Based on the novel of the same name by Katarina Mitrović, Sve Dobre Barbike (All Good Barbies) is a show about young people who feel lost, who are living with little financial support or adequate housing policies for young people in Serbia, with rents constantly on the rise. This show, directed by Đorđe Nešović and adapted for the stage by Isidora Milosavljević, speaks to all promising young women and men to whom success was promised because of their talent and intelligence, but who were let down by the system.
This quarter-life crisis story centres on Vanja, a girl from a small town who tried to make it in the big city and failed. On her 30th birthday, she ends up unemployed, after she quits writing for a TV series she hates, and without a place to live, with no boyfriend, and with deep-seated self-hatred, depression, and the feeling that she’s a failure. Returning home to live with her mother in her hometown, Obrenovac, she starts working in a café and lies to everyone that she is working there only because she’s researching a character for the American TV series she is writing.
This is a modern story about a hungry artist, an exploited writer with no prospect of living off the art she’s proud of. Even the protagonist points out this dangerous stereotype: I know one thing, people love artists who suffer. But we like this story and the protagonist not because we celebrate their suffering, but because she thrives and finds meaning in life, in friendships, family love, community, and in being alive, in spite of it all.
This story speaks about poverty and depression, self-destructive behaviour, as well as the effects of the war and the bombing of Serbia by NATO in 1999, but it also succeeds in having a sense of humour. The actors are strong comic performers and some of the funniest moments were the characters played by Julija Petkovic: that of Vanja’s landlord, a war profiteer who wants to rent Vanja’s apartment to Russians for more money, singing the Russian song Kalinka, and Vanja’s old neighbour, who is completely preoccupied with the plot of a TV series Vanja used to write.
A very successful directorial solution is that all three actors (Julija Petkovic, Aleksandra Arizanovic, and Nevena Kočović) play Vanja as well as other characters. This decision is not just a great example of the economic use of people on stage but also adds an accent to the inner monologue inside the protagonist’s head. Once we recognize there are many voices inside our heads, it can be easier to recognize that not all expectations we have of ourselves are ours. Some of them, if not all of them, we internalized from society. And society is pressuring us to answer to unrealistic beauty standards and unrealistic life goals in this economy, to standards we maybe don’t even want to answer to. The title of the novel – All the Good Barbies refers to the idea that we need to be perfect adults from the sketchbook by the time we turn 30. But capitalism, even though it orders us to strive to be Barbie, so that it can sell us its products, doesn’t allow us to, because we can’t afford any of it.
The costumes (Marija Varga) are simple uniforms that look like pyjamas, something that is impersonal and that seems at the same time as sweatpants you wear when you’re “bed-rotting” in the house of your parents. On the actresses’ faces, as well as on their costumes, there are dotted lines that look like tailors’ marks. As the show progresses, these marks start to fade from actresses’ faces, and the costume starts to change a bit, depending on the character the actress is representing. The use of make-up could have been more developed as a symbol in a show, with more attention paid to the action of taking off the makeup.
The sound design by Marija Balubždić and music by Balubdžić and actresses Petkovic, Arizanovic, and Kočović had a very important role in shaping the style of the show. Speakers were used to amplify the characters as well as the protagonist’s inner voice. This adds to the director’s concept that all the characters are some kind of a choir of voices in Vanja’s head.
Some other examples of great sound and musical solutions include: the scene of Vanja’s birthday that’s marked by the voices in her head that repeat talk about buying real estate, while the dizziness of the protagonist is successfully captured in the claustrophobic, hypnotizing mixture of noise and voices; the scene where Vanja goes to the supermarket, hungry and broke, with only 47 dinars, becomes a song about food products that she fantasizes about but can’t afford to eat; the owner of a café in Obrenovac where Vanja starts to work gives her operating instructions singing it in kafana folk genre, which has a humorous effect; at the ending of the show actresses sing a famous song for children about a mother telling stories to her daughter until she (mother) doesn’t fall asleep. They switch from a quiet and sad decrescendo to a crescendo that emphasizes the absurdity of the world that can be noted in the song (the main characters are princes who we are supposed to wait for, and the princess is a supportive role; tired and overworked mother falls asleep); the anger of the characters is strongly felt.
All Good Barbies. Photos: Nata Korenskovaia.
This song starts as a lullaby in the context of Vanja’s friend (and former romantic interest, as it seems) who is in an abusive marriage, taking care of her two children, putting one of them to sleep. This may be the strongest scene in the play, just like the plot begins when this friend comes to visit Vanja at the beginning of the play. This shows the important role that female friendships have in life and in the healing of the protagonist.
Another example is her other friendship with Milica (Nevena Kočović), a girl from Obrenovac. Two of them used to do risky and reckless activities together, and now they talk about their psychiatrist and go to the gynecologist (a a funny and accurate depiction by Aleksandra Arizanovic) and face their fears.
The authenticity of the women’s bonding may be the strongest impression made by this show, and that includes the mother-daughter relationship. And the opposite of what the sad lullaby song says – there’s a prince in this story (an ex-boyfriend from Obrenovac, or Vanja’s non-existent boyfriend from Tinder), but in this story, he’s just the supporting character. This show provides us with a strong female-centred universe that our theatre could use more of. However, memories of Vanja’s deceased father also have an important place in her heart.
The scenography of the show is minimalistic but effective. First, we watch our characters in their perfect Barbie impersonal uniforms sitting on the little stage in the centre of the space – with the message that the part of Vanja’s life we’re watching is her attempt to stage the life she thinks is perfect.
When she goes to Obrenovac, the scenography changes drastically – we have a little living room, with a little furniture, a little plant, and a little old TV (on which Mitrovic, the author of the novel, will later read parts of her book to the audience and give instructions for the change of scenography), like in a dollhouse, which makes sense given that this is Vanja’s childhood home.
After that, the performers create anarchy in the audience by bringing some of the spectators to sit on stage, while they recreate different parts of Obrenovac all around them. This change and connection to the audience could be seen as Vanja’s internal change – her openness to a new perspective on the world.
In the play’s last scene, in which Vanja witnesses the survival of a girl in a bus accident, there’s a catharsis in recognition she too has survived the accidents that life has brought upon her – to be born in a bad time and a bad place. But there’s also gratitude for the life and the love you have that makes being 30, or any other age for that matter, completely, utterly unimportant.
Credits: Directed by: Đorđe Nešović Text: Isidora Milosavljević (based on the novel by Katarina Mitrović)
Cast: Julija Petković, Aleksandra Arizanović and Nevena Kočović
For more information, visit: Heartefact.org
Mina Milošević is a playwright, dramaturg, screenwriter, and theoretician based in Belgrade. She holds a BA in Dramaturgy and an MA in Theory of Drama Arts at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. She worked as a dramaturg on plays in Atelje 212, Belgrade Drama Theatre, Yugoslav Drama Theatre, National Theatre in Belgrade, and Oda Theatre in Prishtina. Her play "Dr Ausländer (Made for Germany)" was presented at BITEF festival 2022. Her master's thesis on female friendship in Serbian contemporary theatre won the "Professor Boško Milin" Award.
