The play “How I Learned to Drive” celebrated a small jubilee in Požarevac

The audience in Pozarevac had the pleasure of attending the 20th performance of the play “How I Learned to Drive” on November 13. The play was based on an award-winning text by Pole Vogel, a famous playwright and activist. Directed by Tara Manic, the roles are ongoing and Malecke are interpreted by Svetozar Cvetković and Marta Bogosavljević. The text was adapted by Vuk Bošković, and the play is on the regular repertoire of Hartefact House in Belgrade. The play has been awarded multiple awards at domestic and international theater festivals.

“How I Learned to Drive” by Polevogel, is a text that many call “Lolita” written from a female perspective—a character of an adult Malecka, who recalls her childhood. Working on it in the chamber, intimate space of Hartefact House, together with actress Marta Bogosavljević and actor Svetozar Cvetković, as well as with all our collaborators, we tried to find a gentle stage language for this complex, deep and delicate text — which does not even try to match the reality we live in every day. It is so much more terrible, it happens all around us and seems discouragingly unstoppable to us - that through this play we have tried to go back, step by step, examining a problem that most people who read this text have encountered at some point in their lives. The relationship of these two characters, Malecka and her flow, is full of ambivalences: love, tenderness, curiosity, teaching, trust, authority formation, mistakes, and consequently: breaking boundaries, grumbling and hurting, to the point of self-destruction. The great value of this text is the empathy of the author for both characters, thus opening an important, polemical tone about the causes and not just the consequences of such a relationship. This is a play about forgiveness, without the awareness that it is impossible to forgive. I hope that with this play we will make people awake and at least a little more courageous — I think that would be more than enough in a society where we make them ashamed and silent.” — Tara Manic, director.

After the performance, the audience had the opportunity to participate in a conversation about the play with the director and actors. The conversation was moderated by Ljiljana Todorović Jovanović From the FeMin collective. In addition to the very process of working on the play, there were also talks about difficult topics opened by the text itself such as incest, trauma and grumbling. After the end of the conversation, a small jubilee is marked with a cake. The people of Pozarevac gladly left the show with comments that this kind of engaged artistic content is very necessary for Požarevac.

“How I Learned to Drive” can be viewed as part of the regular repertoire Hartefact of the house, and we recommend that you also inform yourself about the other performances that this young theater presents on its stage.

‍