Yugoslav Drama Theatre, premiere 24th March 2025
“It is easier to imagine a total catastrophe which ends all life on earth than it is to imagine a real change in capitalist relations – as if, even after a global cataclysm, capitalism will somehow continue…” These words, in which Slavo Žižek paraphrases Frederic Jameson’s thesis, align with the idea that German playwright Marius von Mayenburg has woven into his 2004 play Eldorado.
His post-apocalyptic, dystopian drama illuminates the fractures of contemporary society by depicting the influence of power and capital on human degradation. Set in the world of finance and real estate, the story follows Anton, a businessman trying to balance his professional and personal life while the system to which he belongs slowly grinds him down. All of this takes place in a world after a war. Ruins and mass graves are advertised as promising neighbourhoods of a revitalized capitalist “utopia,” one unburdened by reverence for the destroyed world or concern for those who cannot afford the luxury of a new – ha new! – life.
On a symbolic level, the title “Eldorado” functions as an ironic echo – instead of a mythical promise of wealth, what actually surrounds the characters is desolation. In this way, a specific inversion is created: the space of abundance is already present, but it is imbued with an insatiable interest that tears the community apart. The result is a grotesque dramatic image of an unacceptably horrifying and sterile existence that, essentially and paradoxically, is no different from the world we live in.
Veljko Mićunović’s production for the Yugoslav Drama Theatre focuses precisely on the visual identity of the performance, where the stage design extends into the auditorium, reaching over the seats, making the world of the isolated and privileged elite – with its large grassy yard and glass house – literally within reach. In the distant background stands a blurred projection of a high residential building. It looks like an old structure from a poor neighbourhood, looming over the quasi-idyllic space of the meticulously arranged garden like some sort of threat.
This class segregation, along with other set design elements, is built upon motifs from the dialogue. Thus, we see stuffed animals, escapees from the zoo, birds circling the high building (in the text, they fly above a forest), dead fish in an aquarium (mentioned multiple times in the text), and sewage pipes sprawling beneath shopping centres, the only surviving remnants of civilization. Within the text, all of these elements form a web of unsystematic, almost arbitrary symbolic remarks on the theme of wild, numbed, subjugated, and defeated people in the neoliberal capitalist society.
In this way, “Eldorado” has entered the repertoire of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre as yet another example of the impressive scenographic achievements of the design team Numen/For Use, whose work has defined productions such as Metamorphoses, Hamlet, Einstein’s Dreams, and Alice in the Land of Fear. However, what sometimes emerges as a challenge in these productions is the director’s overreliance on monumental scenographic solutions. That can lead to plot dynamics frequently being exhausted in static exchanges of dialogic monotony – something from which this “Eldorado” production is not entirely exempt.
Mićunović combats the spatial stagnation in several ways. First, he attempts to place each scene in a different section of the space, intensifies the metaphorical functions of certain characters through specific choreographies, adds subtle details such as dead fish falling from the sky into the aquarium, and so on. In this way, he manages to some extent to maintain the audience’s attention, ultimately confronting them with a story of a wealthy widow with a sexual servant, a pianist daughter with low self-esteem, and a son-in-law desperately hiding the fact that he has been fired – a secret that leads him to a nervous breakdown.
The greatest contribution to these suggestive but slightly conventionally written character dynamics comes from the actors. They provide these captives of capitalism with the necessary dose of credibility and vitality.
Eldorado, Yugoslav Drama Theatre. Photo: Nebojsa Babic
Nikola Rakočević masterfully portrays the complexities of human conditions. His Anton is not a hero rebelling against the system but its product – ambitious, yet incapable of recognizing the moment of his own downfall; full of love for Tekla, yet paralyzed by fear of disappointing her.
Tekla, Anton’s wife, adds another dimension to the drama. Her conversations with Anton oscillate between irony and attempts to escape into a semblance of normal life. She plans the garden’s layout, but all of this contrasts with the ruins of the moral and economic disorder surrounding them. Ivana Vuković delicately and convincingly balances the fragility of artists self-confidence and a tendency for daydreaming with a readiness to relinquish her ideals and yield to those who will support her.
Greta symbolizes the hedonism and decadence of the elite. Her existence is steeped in consumption – be it material wealth, alcohol, or romantic affairs. The brilliant Nataša Ninković finds moments in Greta that successfully translate into comedic situations. Oskar, Greta’s lackey, portrayed by Miodrag Dragičević, is striking but overwhelms with bodily gestures and speech that flows without a clear full stop, making it seem like his sentences are never truly completed. Ashenbrener, the ruthless representative of corporate capitalism and Anton’s superior, is masterfully realized by Goran Šušljik as a cabaret-like promoter of selling the devastated world with a smile while dancing. Marta Bogosavljević, a young actress in the role of Manuela, manages to stand out despite having a smaller part.
The Guardian’s critic Michael Billington noted years ago that von Mayenburg translated Sarah Kane’s plays, including Blasted, in which she imagines what would happen if the Bosnian war broke out in Leeds. He interprets Eldorado’s post-apocalyptic context as an invasion of a European metropolis akin to the one carried out on Iraq in 2003. In that sense, the Belgrade production of the play can be viewed through the lens of life after the war in Ukraine, the genocide being carried out before the world’s eyes in Palestine, the consequences of global warming, or the economic crisis. The story can be scaled down to a local level and interpreted as life in Serbia after the lithium exploitation that Rio Tinto seeks to undertake in the fertile and populated Jadar Valley or the cultural and economic devastation after the corrupt government of Aleksandar Vučić .
The artistic language of Eldorado at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre is undoubtedly rich in meaning and reflects well-thought-out work. However, due to a text lacking dramaturgical boiling points and an interpretation that avoids concrete contextualization in favour of symbolic universality, we are left with a cold and only occasionally exciting theatrical experience that can refer to anything. The perspective from which it is interpreted depends on your goodwill.
Credits:
Andrej Čanji is a theatre critic and theatrologist based in Belgrade.
