Sunday, 16 August

Princess Ljubica’s Residence, 8:30 p.m.

Bajbok

A theatre performance inspired by Sławomir Mrożek’s The Emigrants

Ticket price: RSD 500

Adapted and directed by: Tatjana Kecman

Cast: Tatjana Kecman and Ana Lečić

Sound and lighting: Igor Borojević

Winner of the Best Actress Award at the MAKADO Festival in Podgorica

The play Bajbok was inspired by Sławomir Mrożek’s drama The Emigrants. Far more comic than tragic, the story is set in Sweden. Two women from the Balkans, sharing a rented flat, celebrate New Year’s Eve 2020. They differ in every respect except their background.

One is a typical migrant worker who has gone abroad to earn enough money to build a life back home. She goes hungry and saves every penny because she has only one goal—to build a four-storey house with a little swimming pool in her village and make everyone burst with envy. She hides her hard-earned money and shamelessly borrows cigarettes, coffee, food and anything else she can get.

The other is a young feminist, a compulsive talker and self-proclaimed “owner of knowledge.” Yet all her talking and philosophising cannot fill the void inside her or conceal how lost and ill-equipped for life she really is.

Trapped not only by quarantine, but also by their misguided beliefs and fantasies of a better future, they allow the present to pass them by. Their coexistence might have been a sad one—had there not been a bottle of expensive foreign liquor within reach.

Ana Lečić is a young Serbian theatre, television and film actress. She was born in Belgrade, where she lives and works, and graduated in acting from the Faculty of Contemporary Arts.

She gained wider recognition for her role as Olga in the television series Debt to the Sea. Audiences have also seen her in the film and television series Dara of Jasenovac, as well as in the series Civil Servant, Black Wedding and Debt to the Sea. She also delivered a notable performance in the project Hajduk in Belgrade.

Tatjana Kecman is an actress with extensive film and television experience. She studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo and the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade.

She has delivered acclaimed performances in the film Dara of Jasenovac and in the popular television series The Well, The Singer and My Father’s Murderers. She is the founder and artistic director of the Ferzeng production company, through which she has created some of the most notable independent theatre projects, including Sirena and Victoria, The Two of Us, The Frenzied and Bajbok. These productions have received numerous awards and have been performed at many festivals.