EMIGRANTS

The Three Groats, Serbia

Authors: Marija Maki Lipkovski and Mikloš Miki Barna

Running time: 75’

The Three Groats are a troupe founded in Belgrade by young theatre professionals with a mission of developing an alternative theatrical scene in Serbia. The organisation is aimed at creating a network of artists for supporting young actors and directors as well as for creating a space for work and providing logistic support to authors so that they can freely express themselves. As a troupe that exists without a space for performing their productions, The Three Groats members adapt to all circumstances by trying to adapt the given space to their ideals. Strategies of the troupe members are: project implementation, development of a professional network, education in theatre and through theatre.

The play “Emigrants” was created in Berlin. Their authors, a theatre director from Belgrade and a film director from Budapest, came to the city of dreams, the cultural and party capital of Europe, in search of happiness. Despite being partners, their ideas of happiness are completely different. The play was born out of their intimate clash caused by the fact of starting from scratch. All personal and professional contacts, all that we call everyday life, they had to leave all of it behind. An empty flat and an empty contact book as a stationary eye of a tornado of events, diversity of cultures and languages that Berlin is so proud of – that is how emigrants live. Having no one to turn to but one another, both privately and professionally, in a living room with two chairs, the couple weaves a play trying to express contradiction of their situation. On the one hand, there is the dream city, a place of happiness and freedom, on the other, there is the feeling of being lost and not belonging. The pressure for a person to be accomplished, happy, to succeed once the main excuse for failure – living in Serbia – has been removed, becomes a constant obstacle for reaching those very aims. Material security offered by living in Germany also collapses once it becomes a goal in itself and a source of happiness, instead of being its instrument. The play has been awarded with the Best Director Prize at the ArtOkraina Festival in Sankt Petersburg, Russia, in 2015.

I felt at home in Berlin, Bologna, and Belgrade as well, but we must go somewhere where one can work and if we are happy – that is the most important thing!

Mikloš Barna