TWO STELLAR DECADES
Twenty years is a great, significant, and beautiful milestone—a moment to look back and recall all that has shaped our world, our theatrical and childhood life, what has remained in our memory as a vivid image and lasting impression. It is also a moment to celebrate, and there is no better way to do so than with a new selection: a series of current, contemporary performances that this year form a string of diverse pearls, together creating an , attractive and unusual necklace.
Such an anniversary deserves a selection like this—performances differing in style, approach, and theme, yet all deeply humane and universal. What seems to connect them all, in both the competitive and accompanying programs, is humanity itself: what it means to be human, with all the challenges and responsibilities that entails. The selection strikes a fine balance between stories of the ancient and the contemporary, told in the most beautiful way—through play. In the well-known story of Aska and the Wolf, the authors find a contemporary interpretative line; storytelling itself faces a new challenge called artificial intelligence, while the wondrous power of language, freedom of imagination, and authenticity are explored through the unusual girl Akiko. The questioning of identity is an enduring civilizational theme, and alongside growth and transformation—explored in Akiko—young audiences will encounter it in the play Wonder, which shows how the foundations of love and security always bear fruit, no matter the storms and rains. And why mention the weather? Perhaps because a significant part of the selection is devoted to themes of climate change, present in public discourse for over a decade. Giga builds a refuge for himself and his friend by the sea, knowing that nature is always a reliable answer, as is the case in Why Don’t They Care, where ecology takes center stage. The same is true of the baby play Dawn and a Dream in the accompanying program, as well as the one where soap bubbles take the leading role—innocent, fleeting, and magical. Children learn about the logic and unpredictability of nature, as well as its preservation, in the company of the charismatic Laura, a doctor for clouds. In Extinct Objects, the authors introduce young audiences to major civilizational shifts—from the disappearance of dinosaurs to the emergence of plastic. Once, people knew nothing of ozone holes—perhaps because the planet was greener—but that was long ago. Part of the selection is devoted to those distant times: musketeers and knights, figures who championed virtues such as courage, sacrifice, and solidarity. The festival bridges the archetypal and the contemporary, and in one play the heroine truly encounters her ancestors—bearers of wisdom from ancient times and of compelling family stories. And what kind of festival would this be if it did not open space for empathy, vulnerability, and tenderness? In The Summer I Learned to Fly, children encounter family, cathartic emotions, unresolved conflicts, and illness. Another delicate play, The Stars on the Ceiling, addresses this often-taboo subject, offering children an indirect way to face it. All of this is done with charm, sincerity, and humor, opening important and profound themes—because we, too, are capable, perceptive, and ready to see and hear it all. Everything that these creative and spirited theatre-makers have prepared for us, everything brought by the twentieth anniversary of Zvezdarište.
Ana Vučković Denčić, writer and journalist
