Theater and drama in an anthropological approach

By: Haqif Mulliqi Anthropological approach on the connections between drama and theater

The anthropology of drama and theater tries to teach us the basics of dramatic art through a prism or even a cultural perspective. This has to do with a specific tradition, where specific themes of a certain form or even a certain genre are used in drama and theater. The phenomenon in question is directly related to the creator, that is, to how and how much he works who inspired his art[1], how he sees the reality to which a drama writer refers in the conditions and circumstances of a spiritual and political terror such as was the case of Kosovo, in the last quarter of the 20th century, or even how it pertains, how it is intertwined and how the author shapes the symbols for the breeding of the text, how he perceives the space where he places the events of the drama, the time in which the event takes place, or even how he creates opportunities for the director to raise his dramaturgy and image, ideas, as uses the paralips in the large mosaic, so that the more or less attentive viewers of a theater performance, trace to the end of the drama and try to find or even create the contexts of the work, which they sometimes miss their usual artistic context[2].

Anthropology is a science that deals with the study of man and his life, with social organization and institution, in the past and in the present. This happens from a multiple perspective, combined with knowledge from many related disciplines, which may have influenced, especially during the last century (also in the context of drama and theater developments in Kosovo), that the science of anthropology and its study to be in a kind of very close contact with the theory of drama. This is because, both drama and anthropology, throughout the history of their existence, have dealt with and continue to deal with a very crucial question: who is man? This question brings to the surface the issues that, right there and then, are related to the problems related to identity[3].

In this context, for the drama as well as for the theater of Kosovo, as for the drama in general, it is primary and of particular importance to study the themes, events, myths, rituals, customs, customs as and other features, because their expressive power in dramatic creativity exceeds the commonplace, written and judgmental rules of problem theories alone[4].

The most obvious connection between drama and theater is that with ritual[5]. It is no coincidence that researcher Jorge Livraga has discovered that Aeschylus' tragedies are a continuation of the religious processions of the Temple of Eleusis, where he himself had served as master of religious rituals.[6].

Politics by its very nature is anti-ritual. It is also the opposite of religious. Simply put, it's a tough practice. Finally, the drama itself thematizes political elements and events, but even the most political drama always remains outside of politics, because the nature of art and politics are opposites. Politics affects theater and drama, at least since the time of Pericles[7] until our days. It either affects for better or for worse. But its influence is present. The point is, today the motivation of playwrights to write texts depends on government policies, but also the ability of theaters to stage dramas with clear and powerful aesthetic messages. There have been periods when the theater has also influenced politics, but they are periods of disturbances in the value system, as in revolutions (the word comes, the French Bourgeois Revolution), or periods when an additional agent of identity is sought and found in the theater, as happened with Czech nation.

The transparent language of drama and post-dramatic theater in Kosovo

Seen from the theatrical point of view, we must say that drama and theater are a kind of tribune in which there is a very suitable space for pre-dramatic and pre-theatrical actions. This can go to the limits when the big ideas prevail and when the dilemma is created that, in such cases, we are dealing only with the theater or even for something bigger and more important than that. The case of Kosovo and this expanded space for communication and distribution of great political and national ideas are indicative of this. In fact, here we are dealing with what is known as engaged drama and theater, which could be considered outdated, especially after the fall of the Berlin wall and the unification of Germany, but not even in Kosovo in the conditions and circumstances of violence and of Serbian terror.

Here we can delve deeper and deeper into the theory itself, but also into the anthropology of drama. If we were to look at a series of these theories and anthropological predispositions from a broader perspective, then we can consider acceptable the following statement: the aesthetics of drama and theater originate precisely in the principles of mass communication, interaction and collective perception, as well as the creation of a certain intercommunicative bridge between two worlds - that of the audience and the world of drama. In this case, drama and theater take on the function of evoking certain events from the past (fairy tales, myths, legends, ballads, etc.), which have a clear and complete impact and which also coincide with the daily concerns of the audience that is focused on.

Otherwise, the drama would not have any kind of function if it did not communicate so directly with the public, nor if it did not speak so openly about the world and the people in it, about society, moral, political, social, national problems such as and on issues related to people's identity. For this reason, it is plausible to think that dramatic literature is always, directly or indirectly, engaged and structured by creative content as one of the most powerful means of communication and expression in a country.

When we talk about authors here, let's say Rexhep Qosja, Anton Pashku, Beqir Musliu, Teki Dervishi, Milazim Krasniqi, Fadil Hysaj, Ajri Begu, Ekrem Kryeziu, Ymer Shkreli, Flamur Hadri, Nebi Islami, Azem Shkreli and others, then , in an instant, we will understand that, in the creative commitments of these authors, we can find a powerful commitment and that their creativity is not only related to the dramatic form that has been created, but, in this case, also to the reflection of the drama and media theater with a lot of content and efficiency.

In the aesthetic level as well as in the moral and anthropological level, the creative spirit that begins with these authors of dramas in Kosovo, can be treated as a special type of creativity because there we can find all the signs and omens of a dramatic poetics clearly formulated, wise and straight that leaves its mark on time.

In the works of Dosje, Pashku, Musliu, Dervish, Krasniqi and others, the dramatic characters as well as the situations, sometimes, cease to be only the result of any analysis, simply, let's take it: only psychological or even only psychoanalytical. Here it stands out that, so to speak, nothing in the dramas that contain the most powerful existentialist signs such as: paramythic, countermythic, polemical as well as philosophical ones, can only happen within a motivational whole. Or, perhaps, even just the biography of one or more characters of a work (dramatis person)[8]^. They occur when considering the many other identifying signs and layers of a dramatic work that made it capable of communicating with the public. These can be many of the sociological, cultural, historical, philosophical reasons that stratify a work because, as Marta Frejnd says in the book "History in drama and drama in history': The characters of a dramatic work are - and should be - the very personified theses on which an author builds his work and which operate within certain presumed or even speculative philosophical, poetic, social, historical or even political contexts.[9].

What is warned as an omen in the dramatic works of Racine or Voltaire and Rousseau, in the period of dramatic classics, in the last three decades of the 20th century and at the beginning of the new millennium, as if experienced a real flowering in the dramatic creativity of some Albanian authors in whose works philosophy, to put it simply, is transformed into dramatic poetry. Here we are dealing with a talent, a passion as well as a great desire for drama and theater to be engaged arts, in which case, as a result, more special and specific structures of dramatic creativity are born and shaped as a creation that transforms the theater into a powerful medium that has the ability to open public discussions and communication.

This is what happened in the Kosovo dramaturgy of the mentioned period, also because the Albanian theater and drama here were connected with mythology as a framework for the development of the action in the work. So, let's face it, drama The living sphinx of Rexhep Dosje uses the biblical motif of the myth of fratricide to build his subject, always introducing the idea of ​​a new direction in Albanian dramaturgy in general and advancing dramatic forms in Albanian literature. While the author Milazim Krasniqi in the drama A new Antigone does not use the ancient myth of Antigone only for its complexity as well as the aesthetic and ideological density that the myth contains, but because of the archetypal layers and the clarity that this myth has with all its values ​​as well as the contemporary messages that can be transmitted through it, and a significant part of them are also political messages and statements. Therefore, to The shore of sorrow of Teki Dervish, we find that the myth was narrated beforehand, while the theses established in this drama leave the impression that all this was the purpose and determination of the author even, perhaps, even before he started the realization of the work.

On the other hand, the philosophical convictions of Anton Pashku, or even of Ymer Shkreli (in some of his later plays), although they may leave an impression of similarity in the foreground, nevertheless they differ from the convictions as well as the dramatic philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre as well as his philosophy of existentialism articulated in drama. The plays of these two authors are not as politically charged as those of their colleagues. However, they find that it is precisely drama and theater that create a greater possibility and adaptability for a philosophical activity. According to these authors, drama and theater turn out to be the only forms of moral education of a society as well as of a nation in certain circumstances, such as those that Kosovo was going through at the end of the last century.

Dramas by A. Pashku (Syncope and goof) as well as Y. Shkreli's plays (Paradox, Ulpijana or even Black Zeka travels to Babylon), they find their starting point in those attitudes that are built by a society in general, and not only by an individual as the bearer of a certain drama. Therefore, it can be judged that they also occur as a product of a sharp creative intelligence, while the universe of their works consists, first of all, of reason itself.

Unlike the authors we have singled out for this study, we can conclude that Anton Pashku is less interested in changing the myth in his plays, because he does not modify the events in his works as R. Qosja does. , B. Musliu, M. Krasniqi, A. Begu and any others that aim to create an endless series of life stories. Even Pashku neither modifies nor "deforms" his own dramas in terms of their re-reading and narrative nature of the essences that this myth constitutes within itself. So, it turns out that the characters of Anton Pashku's dramas, or some of Ymer Shkreli's, almost do not even have any special ability to change the given myth, but that, in the essence of the author's dramatic attention, the effort of to some people who are not typical representatives of the society they belong to, who act in mythical urban circumstances where the traditional mythological action is avoided as the goal of a character who, in one way or another, avoids his own fate or destiny.

While among the authors, such as Beqir Musliu, Ajri Begu, Fadil Hysaj, Ekrem Kryeziu, Flamur Hadri, Emin Kabashi, Edi Shukriu, Azem Shkreli and any other of this dramaturgical provenance, it can be concluded that that creativity was a reflection, as to clearly prove that man, first of all, exists, then to define himself as well as his own philosophy of existing. All these authors come together, as a block of the same school, of the same life experience, of the same practice in dramatic poetry. And, even though in their works we can also find distinctive, experimental dramaturgical experiences, this entire creative opus can also be seen in the context of the effect of globalism, about which debates began to open at that time, in especially in the contexts of the role and opportunities of small cultures which had begun to be (re)constructed in the directions leading to the poetics of post-socialism.

As for the dramaturgical subject we are talking about, here we can start from the findings that the practices of drama writing in Kosovo, in this period (while the same was prolonged for a few years after 1999, which is observed in the works of the most famous authors young people), are practices that can also be named as experimental practices, where the language is not entirely transparent, while the thoughts continue to be quite hermetic here and there, where linear narration is not encountered, so to speak. In these works, in the epicenter, we find the placement of some other cultural experiences that were typical, especially for that time as well as for those that were considered countries, peoples as well as smaller and less influential cultures such as the Albanian one.

The canons of the national poetics of the drama

In the last quarter of the 20th century, in the dramaturgy created in Kosovo, as well as in the theatrical performance realized in this period, we encounter an important tendency to expand a series of rules and canons of the national poetics of drama. Authors who, in one way or another, had been marginalized in Kosovo's society either by politics or by cultural institutions in the country, which, not infrequently, were directly at the service of politics, were included in this creativity. This has influenced the creation of some types of "closed" dramas, full of metaphors and the use of Aesopian language in them, to a considerable extent, which is not always acceptable in dramatic creativity. Likewise, the treatment of topics with sediments of narratives from antiquity with mythological content. From these were also created some that can be considered more special dramatic forms, which were, as said, much more closed, but through which an admirable degree of communication with the public, eager for artistic speech on stage as well as for free speech in society. On this occasion, we can also talk about the creation of some acute forms of dramaturgy which, not infrequently, began to be compared with the quality of contemporary dramas, in the spirit of postmodernism, in the Balkans and beyond. This was happening because authors like Anton Pashku, Rexhep Qosja, Teki Dervishi and others strongly believed that, through these forms, some new and greater opportunities to express and communicate and influence the wider public would be created. wide.

The essential status of this dramaturgy was ensured in a very effective and significant way for that time, while this spirit was also complemented by the works of foreign authors, in particular those who, in their works, dealt with themes and phenomena that were close to and similarities with the problems that the citizens of Kosovo were facing on a daily basis, starting from Sophocles and Aeschylus, William Shakespeare to Brecht, Sartre, Camus, Kafka, Olbi, Mrozhek or even Harvudi, because the works of these authors even then , like today, speak clearly about war, about power, about ideas of freedom, about trust and disappointment, about betrayal and bitterness, as well as about the creation of various political, social and existential spirals in society.

The need for a kind of manoeuvrable writing and full of symbols and metaphors like this, created some fertile spaces for planting new ideas in drama and theater, which, incidentally, due to the expressive power and communication skills that theater has in relationship with its public, not only influenced the creation of works full of different national and social ideas and messages, but also deepened the divide between art and power. This was also the reason why the secret police had increased vigilance and were trying to control the theater repertoire.[10], to appoint any of the directors of the theater from people close to the security forces, but also to recruit individuals who, in the community, even to me, were called: breaker of metaphors[11].

That these practices in drama and theater could be realized, especially in the darkest period for Kosovo, at the time of the suppression of even the partial autonomy it enjoyed, in 1989, until after the end of the war in 1999, in most of cases influenced that playwrights, directors and actors in Kosovo were forced to work outside their own cultural context or, to put it in the political language of that time, to find a safe space where even life was no longer safe.

New theatrical trends

During the seventies, eighties and nineties of the 20th century, in the dramaturgy that was created in Europe, also adopted by various authors in Kosovo, however, some very interesting movements were also encountered that were no longer just trends in Albanian drama. Regarding these pan-European movements and their vast extent on the continent, the German theorist Hans-Thies Lehman writes in a general way in the book Postdramatic theaterAccording to this author, a significant number of playwrights of this period created - against the different levels of the content of the dramatic dimensions, through texts in which the language is not presented as the characters' own speech, if such characters still exist that can be defined, but as an independent theatrical element[12]. Lehmann here also highlights the works of a certain number of authors, such as, by the way, an author less known to us, Gink Steinwach, who, with his theater as an oral entity, tried to shape the stage reality as a type of poetic sensibility that is directly related to the linguistic reality in the work. In this context, we can also mention the theater of the subjugated by Augusto Boali, whose theater was also named as a theater forum and which can also be seen as a kind of platform of its own kind to try solutions, in which the individual or the group is empowered to act to face the problems of the community to which they belong as well as the problems of the individual[13]In this context, another European researcher, Elfride Jelinek, will develop the notion of the opposites of speech spaces, naming it as Sprahflache[14]. Its formula introduces us to the contradictions, or even the contradictions of the deepest dimensions of the characters who speak, as we find in, let's say, the drama The living sphinx of Rexhep Dosje or even to Syncope and goof of Anton Pashku, and which objectively lead to a kind of mimetic illusion.

Here we can't help but agree with Lehman, who rejects the remarks that are made to this type of theater, an approach that we find in us, especially through the two authors above, Qosja and Pashku, but also through the works Dervish, Beg, Musli, Krasniqi, Shkreli and other authors, such as Azem Shkreli, Agim Malaj, Fadil Hysaj, Mehmet Kraja, Ahmet Qirezit, Xhabir Ahmeti, Ekrem Kryeziu, etc. What is common in this typology of dramas is that it is not a question of lack of interest of these authors on the fate of the common man and with the features of our everyday life but, more than that: for an introspective view of the human being which, in fact, tends to destroy the first dimension of the world to which we belong and which we try to change.

In the works that we are talking about in our study, also in terms of the organism of their post-dramatic layers, in some of them it can be ascertained a kind of absence of the common man or even of his photograph based on a stereotype of consumed, especially in the dramas of the socialist realism period. In most of these works we find the man of older times or even of our own time, running through open issues and innumerable dilemmas, for which reason that man is also put before an examination of what his possibilities are. real in this life or even the imaginative possibilities of the character as a subject that are sketched together all these more or less. Such are Habili and Kabili The living sphinx; also Lulani and Lulua te gofi; Uncle to Syncope; also Kardhiq Lojtari, Konstantin Lojtari, Lojtar Lojtari and others Beg of Sorrow; and Antigone to A new Antigone and so on. This shows that the circumstances in which this dramaturgy developed as well as these types of theatrical forms, which were deeply immersed in the concepts of postmodernism as well as postdramatic theater, in one way or another brought there elements clearly opposed to the so-called dramatic theater European which, not infrequently, is identified with the theater of drama, while it was essentially defined by the categories of mocking actions (found in the foundation of the drama of the absurd in its attempt to challenge and contest Poetics of Aristotle for drama) as well as of action.

Theater towards the fictional cosmos

Thus, the dramatic theater is under the rule of the text, while these theatrical forms give opportunities to research, but also to find other dramatic and theatrical expressions on the stage, which, sometimes, determine even the greatest possibilities or, at least, the most diverse ones of creation, sometimes even leaning towards creations which find the solution only in directorial theater.

We can talk about the two plays by Rexhep Dosje, The living sphinx and I wonder why they sacrifice me; for the two plays by Anton Pashku, Syncope and goof; ABOUT The snake of the house of Ajri Beg, for Rain in Uortomonto of Resul Shabani, for Pahintika in a dream of Xhabir Ahmet, for Obscure theater of Agim Malaj, for Beauty of Nabi Islam, for The last show of Fadil Hysaj, for Coinage of Ghent of Milazim Krasniqi, or even for the entire dramatic opus of Beqir Musli.

If we continue to remain within this theoretical, aesthetic, ethnological, philosophical and anthropological dioptre, we will necessarily arrive at a clarification of Lehman, who clarifies his opinion by saying that: In the slightly older forms the plays were simply and primarily a type of declamation as well as an illustration of the written drama. Whereas, when music and dance are added to this, drama, whether we like it or not, continues to be a kind of determinant in the sense of the narrative as well as the tonality of thinking in the work and in the tonality of thinking[15].

The dramaturgy we are talking about, apart from its aim to achieve certain ideological and artistic values, focuses on the theater, where it is taught to create illusions about the law and national truths, in order to reach the categories of identity, as well as of the layering of concepts or theories that are related to the cultural and ethnocultural identity of a specific group, such as the Albanians in the former Yugoslavia. In fact, it was intended to achieve something that we have rightly called a fictional cosmos. This concept is also clarified by Lehmani, asserting that it consists of: illusion, totality, representation in the foundations of drama models, while defining dramatic theater as its opposite. And this means that in him we are dealing with such a creativity which, with its form, confirms a whole that appears as a model of reality[16].

It is well known that the post-dramatic theater draws its roots from the so-called historical avant-gardes which started at the beginning of the last century, but the authors who worked in Kosovo within these forms, the critic and researcher Josif Papagjoni, in terms of the typology presents them to be enough various[17]^. According to him, symbolic and paradigmatic elements are present everywhere in these dramas either as situations or as direct meanings, while the structure, as an internal aesthetic feature of this dramaturgy, which the researcher in question looks at through the frames of its hermeticism and polysemantics, successive superimposition of meanings, and then also the deconstructivism of the character with the cutting and tightening of different plans, misunderstood dialogues, absurd situations, lack of measurable physical time as well as preference for psychological time, which turns out to be an immeasurable goal of an anxiety, a trauma, nervous stress and that is, nothing but drama of the characters of these works[18].

Playwrights and directors in search of personal forms

While playwrights write dramatic texts based on the concerns that haunt them and are individualistic (but, not infrequently, also collective), directors also explore the pores of the theater to find the most suitable and most appropriate forms. important for a while to stick a text on the stage boards. Jokes, symbolism and metaphors are also constructed by directors in another creative process. Thus, in this case, even the directors, as authors of the plays, try to express special meanings and ideas, because they are aware that the theater has the power, but also its inalienable autonomy, which enables them to be more inventive, more creative and more engaged in exploring their creative imagination. And this means to be inventive and not depend only on the textual content of the dramatic work that they have taken for treatment, that is, not to present to the public only the essences of the concerns of the dramatists, but to also create on another level of communication in the theater medium[19].

Theatrical forms that were created here went even further, through modern directorial approaches, which aimed to present the textual worlds that the dramatic subject of a given work has and, questioning only the outdated theater model in us, that of theatrical representation as well as ways of communicating with the audience. In connection with what we said, we can also use an opinion of Lehman, who considers that this new spirit in the theater in general came somewhere in the mid-70s of the XNUMXth century as a result of the spread of media in the daily life of people in general[20]. This moment is very important because even in theatrical life it brought new forms of discourse which, in general, was accepted and called post-dramatic theater, and even developed into the ruling theatrical concepts of the time.

We find this very early in the drama Erveheja by the author Ahmet Qirezi, directed by Muharrem Qena, but also at The general of the dead army staged by Pirro Mani (based on the novel by I. Kadare), who, on the theater stage, brought a series of innovations that are part of theater studies in Kosovo even today. Then we also find it in the show The living sphinx of Dosje, by the Macedonian director Lubisha Georgijevski, which was called a complete and plastic performance, built and inspired in a studio way, starting from the directorial formulations, scenographic solutions to costume design, etc. All this, according to the critic of the biggest daily of former Yugoslavia, politics, M. Stojadinovic, was born according to a legality (but not spontaneously) and the whole rests in an inner harmony, even in the shooting of rifles on the open stage. The movements of the director and the speaking of the artists have created that harmony, since when they acted it seemed as if they were whispering something, while when they spoke it was as if something itself was moving.[21]. While the critic Musa Ramadani, in his critical review of the show in question, among other things, points out that, after Funny of course, Godo... or even The general of the dead army staged by Pirro Mani, the living sphinx of Rexhep Dosje was a singular and rare theatrical event in the Albanian drama of the Regional People's Theater[22]. M. Ramadani gave this conclusion at that time in an article published in the main Prishtina daily Rilindja, on the occasion of the participation of this performance in the Festival of Small Experimental Stages MESS in Sarajevo. According to him, the director of living sphinx, Lubisha Georgijevski, anticipating some possibilities of the Dosje text and in full agreement with the author, entered the stage realization in a way that is known only as the property of good directors, who take upon themselves a big question mark. He, quite bravely, has neglected a good part of the text, finding and discovering there the main threads that present the framework of the drama, in which case he has also removed some secondary or third-rate characters to followed there those minidramas of the most important ones, thus bringing its formulation to a concept that, perhaps, is not new but, at least, it seems more consistent, with the invention of the inspired master of the stage, his directorial approach and it has both originality and creativity[23]. And this, in his own way and from his point of view as a director, is emphasized by Lubisha Georgijevski himself in a short essay published in the leaflet of the play in question, when he says that between the beginning and the end, the road is usually short in if the bridge of conscience mediates there[24].

For the drama critic Demë A. Jasiqi, in the show The living sphinx of Rexhep Dosje, the theater actors, i.e. the performers of the roles, especially the bearers of the main roles, have given a lot, in particular in what he calls the delineation of the characters, which they embodied trying to make them as investigating the individual properties of each of them[25]. The main role of Kabil, who is the organizer of the murders, was rightly entrusted to an actor like Istref Begolli.[26]. According to Jasic, Istref Begolli's Kabili is the most prominent individual in the middle and he, for his dark purposes, uses the lowest means to realize his goals, trying to justify the thing with high motives and which, indeed, are gradually discovered, apart from the commission of the murder to which he is so engaged[27]. While what is evident here has to do with the fact that the theatrical forms that were created here continued even further, through a modern directorial approach when it was intended to present a textual world only questioning the outdated theater model in that world , that of theatrical representation as well as communication of the time with the public. In relation to this issue, we can also refer to an opinion of Lehman, who considers that this new spirit in the theater, in general, came towards the middle of the 70s of the XX century and that, it was also the result of the spread of media in the daily life of people in general[28]. It can be said that this moment is very important for us, because even in the theater life in Kosovo, what Lehmani says, brought new forms of discourse which was accepted by the theater makers, but also by the viewers and was called post-dramatic theater[29]. The owner of this spirit in Kosovo was Muharrem Qena with the staging of Ahmet Qirezi's drama, Erveheja, this dramatic and scenic work, which, for half a century, it is believed that in Kosovo (in all Albanian theaters in general) brought a big turn in the way theater is viewed and perceived, but also in its role in a society, his understanding to bring great turns and motivation for the generations that came after and dealt with this art.

Africa of blood, gender, myth, childhood, death as classic levels of anthropological research

Drama Erveheja of Ahmet Qirezi was originally conceived for the theater. It is about a drama that speaks with the specific language that serves the theater, characterized by a precision and dynamic breeding of events that come as a logical result of the fact that the playwright Qirezi, at the time he wrote this work, was with profession actor and correctly knew the legalities of the scene.

Erveheja, staged by Muharrem Qena, besides aligning itself with the concepts of post-dramatic European theater, it was also composed in an unusual and quite fine style. Inevitably, it appeared in an essentially dramatic way intertwined with passion, being argued within itself with clear and very functional examples, typical of the dramas of that provenance, where dramatic works contained within themselves lyrical, epic or even ballad sedimentations. We think drama Erveheja of Qirezi also contained within itself an unexplored segment of dramaturgical wholes until then. If we read this work with piety and professional and analytical dedication, we will easily understand that in this we can identify the almost passionate concerns of the author to find as many verbal forms as possible in the drama as well as to create as much clarity as possible. great language for the stage as well as in its dramatic dialogue itself.

Here we mean all voices, curses, reproaches, etc. which are typifying elements of Qirezi for this work, and with which the author breaks, or even minimizes to a tolerable extent, the danger zones related to the clichéd forms of our drama written until then, when everything it was completely white or completely black in them. Or when things were divided like a sword and everything, in the end, turned out to be either completely good or completely bad. Thus, a clear and positive image and model of a new dramatic expression of the author, but also of our dramaturgy of that time in general, of which he became a champion, was thrown onto the surface. Erveheja[30].

Blood type, gender, myth, childhood, death, etc. present the classical levels of anthropological research in this work, therefore the interest in the woman, her life, her fate and her position in a society, has a beautiful long tradition even in our country. All these, where less and where more, we find here Erveheja of Qirezi. As the anthropologist Merlin Strathern himself has pointed out, if this fate is examined, then we must abstract two myths which in the history of anthropology have developed in a parallel way and also been overlooked: the myth that feminism was invented by interest anthropological about women and family relations (which we find interwoven and abundant even in the story about the beautiful Ervehena)[31]. On the other hand, Strattern, that myth, as an interest of anthropology oriented towards these problems, i.e. feminist, means only a kind of continuation of anthropological traditions[32].

Here it turns out that an old romantic literary form is transformed and transferred into a contemporary ballad which Ahmet Qirezi and Muharrem Qena have thought through the specific language on stage, thus enabling the actors to, through poetic and legendary symbols, reach the truth life and credibility for them, in a new way for the time, when this work was born either as a drama or even as a theatrical performance, of a premeditated metaphorization.

While the critic Vehap Shita thinks that for this reason, the elements of folklore, especially some theatrical effects, strong lusts, pass into complete sincerity, merge here in the unstoppable whole, which represents fate in human nature, in the most noble way[33]. But according to this critic, who initially was not so "generous" in evaluating this show by A. Qirezi and M. Qena, the director of the show was successful enough to transform all the skills, but also the flaws of some of the actors, into a whole that achieves excellent quality within the very stage requirements and the language of the stage in PARTICULARLY[34]. Also, this show, according to V. Shita, brought the full affirmation of Melihate Ajeti, who played the role of Ervehesa's tragic wife, who is put through great trials of tracking her husband and her own destiny. Together with him, according to him, Sh. Pallaska (Brother-in-law), Xh. Lila (Husband) and I. Begolli, who transforms into several street characters in whose footsteps the unfortunate Erveheja walks[35].

Qirezi's dramatic interpretations and visions in this work, as well as the creation of motifs of female virtue, reflect on the stoic and candid figure of the main protagonist of this work, Ervehesa. While the deep trafficking of her brother-in-law's devilry, through the explanatory language techniques of this drama, which is absent in the poem with the same name (where A. Qirezi found the idea and inspiration to write this drama), exceeds the objective of the narrative usual of this type of dramas. Qirezi, on this occasion, has also made a precise, even millimetric analysis of the other characters of the work, as a way of telling the dramatic layers that turn out to be more compressed, especially in the descriptions of the passions of the characters.

The characters that the author of this play brings to us are a gallery of characters that have been selected precisely, to be a function of the idea of ​​the dramatic intent of the subject selected for treatment in this work. It is these characters that, almost inscrutably, put us in various stages of energetic and thorough thinking not only about how these characters are manifested and how they come into the drama that is built, that is woven and that is depraved before us, but also because of their interweaving and of the deep and precise transposition of the inherent traits that build the characters and that make them powerful, effective and significant at the same time. Here we can also mention the accuracy with which these characters manage to express and build their basic emotions to captivate the viewer of the work.

According to the well-known theater critic from Zagreb, Kreshimir Nemec, the issue he deals with Erveheja e Qirezi and M. Qena is more a glorification of the ethical values ​​not only of the Albanians, but also of the other nations of the Balkans[36]. The well-known Croatian drama and theater critic Kreshimir Nemec, not hiding his excitement for the show Erveheja, says that he liked the drama and reminds Shakespeare, although there are divergences in interpretation. However, there are also those scenes in the show that even the biggest theater ensembles, such as this one from Pristina, would have coveted.[37].

It is also somewhat special how these characters listen to what they eavesdrop on or even how, sometimes, mistakenly, they absorb the lines recited by the other characters they are dealing with. While the most special and complex turns out to be, I don't remember, the lead actress of this work, or her lead actress, Erveheja, even in the theater performance with the same title, by Muharrem Qena[38]. Here we can highlight in particular the moment when Erveheja resists the attempts and threats of death that her brother-in-law makes to her, trying to "adopt" her. That is, the scene when the brother, enraged by anger, takes revenge on Ervehesa (his sister-in-law), slandering, blackmailing, violating every moral principle just to accuse her of infidelity or prostitution, which leads her to court, to punishable by stoning under the law of the time. It is here that we come across a typical situation like in Shakespeare, say, when a rumor turns into tragic information about Hamlet, or even as a slander that incites fantastic forms of Othello's fatal jealousy.

Understanding would not be any less minor than in drama Erveheja of Ahmet Qirezi as an author and Muharrem Qena as a director, we come across and feel a kind of fascination or amazement of the authors with the vocal verbal expressions of the characters of their work, which express and create the transfiguration of a general cultural and human obsession and a poetic obsession full of dangers brought by rumours, bigotry and secret conversations which are typical not only for the time when the event that the author deals with in the work is set.

Erveheja speaks and testifies to an approach, almost neo-naturalistic in the theater. This is related to the clarification of some social phenomena, in which case the interpretation of the relations between men and women in that society stands out. The phenomenon can also be understood as a type of naturalism on the differences and inequality of women in the environment to which she belongs and the circumstances in which she suddenly finds herself. This, in fact, is like an order which, under the dictates of male will and strength, is installed in a society where the only argument, the most stable and the most banal, turns out to be the gender difference between man and woman. See for this, Ervehe of Qirezi and Qena can also be seen as a figure who lives on the margins of some circumstances that produce not only inequality, but also tragic situations that make her life difficult.

A well-known Serbian critic, Ivan Perviq, will deal with this show, who, stopping at the interpretation of the main role, Ervehesa from Melihate Ajeti in this show, emphasizes that the character and fate of Ervehesa, performed by this well-known actress, has given dimensions and descriptions of a brave woman of ancient tragedy. Her own tragedy was echoed in the rhetorical and romantic international[39]. According to him, the death of Ervehesa, as Melihate Ajeti has created it, can be counted among the most extraordinary moments that the art of theater can offer to the public[40]. The leveled and tested ensemble of actors (Shani Pallaska, Xhevdet Lila, Istref Begolli, Ragip Loxha, Ahmet Spahiu, Xhevat Qena, Matej Serreçi, Shaban Gashi and Naxhije Deva) have enabled the director to create the show, which, with all the merits , has entered the official competition of the Steria Festival[41].

If we are also based on what this critic says, at the same time if we do an anthropological and ethnological discursive analysis of this topic of the drama in question, it turns out that Erveheja there is a tendency that proves that between the biological and social behavior of people there is also a relationship that comes as a result of the cause and effect of the connections between them.

These two elements do not represent the dynamic component of our existence. As Henrijeta Mur says, drama, theater and social sciences have always been and continue to be, with the spirit of biological determinism, the newest form of which we find in what this researcher calls socio-biology[42]. The latter, as a type of genetic determinism, represents an extreme form of naturalism of inequalities, including gender inequalities, which is one of the most significant essences in drama as well. Erveheja.

Erveheja, the drama which practically entered and will remain in our memory as the first work which overturned the bucolic dramaturgy of the time, the ideologized and schematized dramaturgy, the real-socialist dramaturgy that was developed until then in Kosovo, also opened a new chapter on thinking differently about theater and theater performance in general. This inevitably revealed a specific subjective sensitivity in a society such as the Kosovar one at the time of the great social changes that were awaiting the country and its citizens. While, according to researcher Ali Aliu, every time has its own way of confessing and that, it can It is assumed that our sensibility, the narrative, the one that destroys and anathematizes through irony, sarcasm, tarnishing, unmasking evil, realized especially through the narrative in the second person (...) It can be approached effectively. If evil knocked on the door, now it is inside the world of a story like this[43].

In connection with Ervehe we can also talk about the first feelings that arise when we read or see this work on stage and after we have finished it. This always happens every time this play is read, but also when we see it on stage. This is also the reason why, one of the most well-known theorists of drama and theater in the former Yugoslavia, Hugo Klajn, would not hide his sympathies and evaluations made in the newspapers of the time for this work, saying, among other things, that he really liked the show, primarily for the sake of unifying the style, because it is described by a spirit-atmosphere of the legend, the creations of the other actors are equally beautiful, while 'Erveheja' is a complete show[44].

Erveheja is a drama that builds on an ancient birth legend to transform itself into an unusual legend of the culture of a people and a country. Even, not even the public of the time in Pristina and beyond did not hide any kind of feeling created by the work, not even when they deeply and clearly understood that, perhaps, for a while it might not even belong to a completely real world, but , simply, another sphere. Of some other universe. Or even of any other time dimension, such as the one in which the tragic Ervehe lived, who tried to survive, despite all the challenges, violations and injustices she faced.

for Ervehe the first more than two decades ago, in an interview done for the initial issue of the specialized magazine for drama and theater, theater, which was being published by Professor Fadil Hysaj, in a conversation we had with the bard of the Kosovo theater, Shani Pallaska, the well-known actor, i.e. one of the most prominent names of Albanian theater art, he evokes: "Erveheja" had appeared as such a show somewhat by chance. For him, this was a shock in the work of these actors. But a good job was done. Muharram (M. Dog, full. mine) came up with a great idea to stage Ahmet Qirezi's drama, while we, all of us, were committed to helping him develop his directorial concept with our play. I think, and I say it without modesty, that the show was successful, but also our play was as excellent as Muharrem's and Ahmet's idea, so the show turned out to be extraordinary. This was a show that broke some worldviews about our theater[45]. Right because, Erveheja it was a show made with a lot of creative sovereignty and imagination and also continues to be a cult drama of our dramaturgy, which ultimately brought this feeling, or even this pleasure, as well as the unreal moment of excitement due to the quality of the composition of the fable, of its complex breeding as well as the author's skill to carry the strength of this work either with the extremely clear, powerful and functional monologues and dialogues, or with the complete and accurate sculpting of the characters as dynamic as they are also active.

The drama we are talking about, in both versions, whether as a book written by Ahmet Qirezi or as a theater performance performed by Muharrem Qena, was a beautiful dramatic work that left behind many impressions. This work, in addition to its literary, dramatic and aesthetic values, also had a very significant value, since it was the first work that marked dramaturgy differently among Albanians and that created the opportunity not only to make a different theater, but also to start thinking and reflecting in deeper, more imaginative, more precise and more timely ways for drama and theater in general as well as for their values. without Ervehe of Ahmet Qirezi, much in our drama and theater would not be as it is today, or even as it will be in the future. While this work undoubtedly came to dramaturgy and to our theater simply and inexplicably, for a small theater like ours to lead it towards the long and arduous paths, that is, to become a large theater of European proportions. /Telegraph/

____________

[1] The starting point for defining the notion of anthropology for the needs of this study was Structural anthropology of Claude Levi-Strauss.

[2] Dubravka Zrnčić Kullenović (Dubravka Zrnčić-Kulenović), professor of dramaturgy at the University of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and at the University of Osijek (Croatia). Interview conducted specifically for this study.

[3] Right there.

[4] By reading the plays of various authors who created in Kosovo in a period of great sensitivity, not only political, I believe that we will be able to clearly chart the thinking of these authors about drama and theater in general and their concepts on the fact that even among our creators (at least a number of them) the time had come to be more direct, clearer and more resonant. They initiated a different approach to dramaturgy, which had and still has the aim of, first of all, radicalizing the theatrical experience in us, installed on the key dramatic scenes of the collective memory, which leads to Albanian cultural changes in general. Of course, some earlier creations of some authors, but no less important of them, are exceptions here. We should write about the plays of R. Qosja, A. Pashku, B. Musliu, M. Krasniqi, Y. Shkreli, T. Dervishi or even A. Beg from aesthetic, anthropological, political, but also cultural aspects, among others. What we are saying does not mean that the works of these authors do not deserve theatrological reviews - that is, that someone among us should engage and do some analysis of their plays, but at the moment when they appeared before us, in one way or another, we began to believe that the time had come to highlight the general theatrical and dramaturgical activity of the playwrights in question and that this creativity, which would honor the dramaturgy of the region, not only the Albanian one, should be sifted and examined also in the context of the spirit of the times, of culture and cultural policy in our country. 

The creativity of the aforementioned authors, but also of others such as Ekrem Kryeziu, Fadil Hysaj, Mehmet Kraja, Resul Shabani, Xhabir Ahmeti, Flamur Hadri, Emin Kabashi, Nebi Islami, Edi Shukriu etc., is only partially realized through dramatic contexts, considering that these are authors who have created a presence on our cultural scene in multiple ways - both through their political and cultural activism, and through the art of writing, feature and documentary film, literature and journalism, and even painting and music. For this reason, as the famous French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu would say, authors like these take an active part in what he would call creation of the field of culture. It is here that we encounter, apart from talent, a lot of passion and love. This breaks down the very reality of our time into variety, in such a way that in its essence it was, projecting quite clearly a strongly contrasted social reality, through a deep resonance as well as the revelations of the universe in which they lived and we live. , or even survived, even acting on the stage of this daily life, sometimes as protagonists and sometimes as antagonists. Thus, these authors, sometimes forced to act even on the margins of society, through a wide perimeter of the cultural scene, in a marked way of intellectual and political activism, a way which had and aims to change the dramaturgical, theatrical and socio-cultural in Kosovo, tried to, with their art, break the flow of homogeneity, the brutal ups and downs of the reality that they themselves belonged to, of which they were victims, along with the way of thinking about it both real and virtual reality, only to leave their mark reaching what they consider valuable for the society they belong to, but also wider than that.

[5]Anthony Hozier, The Continuum Companion to Twentieth-Century Theatre, ed. Colin Chambers, London, 2002, p. 227.

[6] Interview with playwright Milazim Krasniqi, For a humane spirit of drama, New life, Pristina 2012, p. 220.

[7] Haqif Mulliqi, How did you go about it?, Market, Zagreb, 2006, p. 21-23.

[8] notion dramatic personae comes from the word Latin person, while among the Greeks and Romans the actor's mask means the persons behind the masks who play a role in a drama.

[9] Marta Freund, History became drama, drama became history, Prometej-Institut za Književnost - Sterijino pozorje, Novi Sad-Belgrade, 1996, p. 82.

[10] At this time, performances such as Illyrian trunk (1981), a drama created by Fadil Hysaj based on the poetry of Sabri Hamit and directed by Agim Sopi, then also the tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis (1983) by Euripides, directed by Fadil Hysaj, as he was talking about the character's victimization and his ideals. In the first reading tests, the drama was removed Middle Ages of Flamur Hadri (1985), directed by Besim Sahatçi, due to the author's family ties with academician Ali Hadri, who was on the black lists of the UDB, and the other fact that he spoke about the inquisition and censorship. This drama by Flamur Hadri had won the "Katarina Josipi" drama competition, a competition that is still alive today and in which certain figures were competed for. In fact, it was the first play to win a prize in this competition, but it has not been staged to this day. Then the show was also banned Death comes to me from such eyes (1988) mounted on the stage of the National Theater of Kosovo by Fadil Hysaj, a drama written based on the novel of the same name by Rexhep Qosje and which talks about the state terror in Kosovo during the time of Ranković, which marks a period very similar to the period of violence and state terror during Milosevic's time when the show was banned. Ekrem Kryeziu's drama was also banned in the rehearsal. The victims of Tivar (1991), directed by the author. It was this drama of this author who had become a political prison, and which was dealing with one of the biggest tragedies that befell the Albanians of Kosovo at the end of the Second World War when the power of Tito and the servants in Kosovo prepared a plan terrible, in which case they executed in the ancient Albanian city of Tivar about 4 Albanians, who had originally been mobilized to be sent as partisans to fight against the Germans in Srem, Vojvodina, on the border with Hungary, but, in fact, were sent to the Montenegrin coast and were slaughtered in a terrible slaughter. The play and the play were banned without any justification, and the play in question has not been staged again, even after the end of the war. Also, from the first episode, the drama was banned by state decree The krushki are frozen (1993) based on the motifs of the novel of the same name by Ismail Kadare, directed by Pirro Mani. The drama deals with issues related to the student demonstrations of 1981, while the harsh and brutal reaction of the Serbian authorities in 1993 in Kosovo was also related to the subject of the work, but also to the name of I. Kadare, whom the intellectual circles in Serbia had called as an enemy of Serbia. I don't remember that Pirro Mani did not have the opportunity to come to Kosovo to stage the work, so, in a significant part, the work was worked on in Skopje, while a few weeks before the premiere, the drama was put on the stage of Pristina from Pirro Man's assistants. In an article published in the daily Farmer/Renaissance (Prishtina - Tirana), we had written that: While Yelmaz Gynei, the Turkish director of Kurdish origin, from the Ankara prison, with the help of assistants, had made the films Street and Muri (for the first one he also won the Palme d'Or in Cannes), Pirro Mani did not succeed in achieving the same because, as paradoxical as it may seem, a dramatic work can perhaps be worked on from prison to freedom, but from freedom to prison it turned out that it was impossible, while Kosovo is a big prison. The show was stopped by the well-known Serbian writer of dramatic texts, Aleksandar Xhaja, which also showed the blurred vision of Serbian intellectuals, who not only believed in Milosevic's fascist doctrine, but also supported his genocidal system. Also, in the first rehearsals at the People's Theater of Gjakova, the drama was banned The four epaulettes (1997) by Haqif Mulliq directed by Ilir Bokshi. This drama, as is known, is a great protest against the war and, to put justice in place, on December 10, 1999, the German director Holger Zibler put this same text on stage, while I. Bokshin was his assistant.

[11] Drago Jančar, My Dispute - Dispute Adam Michnik, translated by Franci Zwitter jun. Klagenfurt-Salzburg: Wieser Verlag, 1992, p. 134.

[12] Hans Thies Lehmann, Postdramsko kazalište, CDU, Zagreb and TKH, Belgrade, 2004, p. 17. (Translated from Serbo-Croatian by Haqif Mulliqi).

[13] Augusto Boal, Theater of the Oppressed, Pluto Press, 3rd Revised edition, London, 2000, p. 117.

[14] The large space occupied by speech, or even multiple speech in a dramatic work.

[15] See: Hans Thies Lehmann, Postdramsko kazalište.

[16] Right there.

[17] Josif Papagjoni, Tears for/from literature, Toena, Tirana, 2013, p. 438. there. Comment: What Papagjoni talks about is also found in the work of F. Hysaj, especially in his plays Owl Hour and I Halil Garria of Beqir Musli at the Theater of Gjakova, or even Black Zeka travels to Babylon in the Albanian Theater of Skopje (somewhere in the mid-80s of the last century). Likewise, the performances of the Polish director Micheslav Gorkijevic, who made an interesting reading and interpretation of two plays by his compatriot, Slavomir Mrozhek, can also be framed here: Tango and immigrants, which he staged at the Kosovo Theater in Pristina. Also, the show can be mentioned Illyrian trunk under the direction of Agim Sopi and his other shows such as Pyrrhus of Ymer Shkreli, The notes of Gjon Nikolle Kazazi of Jusuf Bujhov or Dr. Faust of Marllout performed, mainly in the National Theater of Kosovo. Here we also find the director from Moscow, Evgenij Radomiljevski, who was invited by the management of the National Theater of Kosovo to stage the dramatization of Anna Karenina of LN Tolstoy. M. I was with the shows Erveheja of Ahmet Qirezi and up to OVERSEER of Harold Pinter. Sefo Bejta Krasniqi, especially with the show I wonder why they sacrifice me and The living sphinx of Rexhep Qosje, in Prishtina and Prizren. I. Dealing with the performances Ah Joe of Samuel Beckett, The cuckoo's grave of Azem Shkreli, Shpend Sokol of Sokol Shpendi of Ymer Shkreli as well as, later, with The Albanian with his hands in his pockets and Y. Shkreli. Here we can also mention the Croatian director of European stature, Zhorzh Paro, who, on the main theater stage of Kosovo, staged one of the most successful variants of Macbeth of U. Shakespeare. Vladimir Milçin from Skopje, who staged the drama there Confectionery of the Croatian-Jewish author Slobodan Shnajder, which was a parable of the birth, development and degeneration of communist ideas in the USSR and in the entire Eastern bloc. Millçin also staged the dramatization of the political novel in Pristina Dervish and death of Mesha Selimović as well as The shore of sorrow of Teki Dervish. Croat Tomislav Durbešić staged the drama in Pristina embracing of Ranko Marinković. Orhan Kerkezi came with the original drama 7 colors... Farewell (built according to the idea of Faust of Goethe). Also, this director made the stage premiere of the drama The four epaulettes of Haqif Mulliq, etc. These directors, as well as others, do not think that they managed to preserve in their plays what was most significant for dramatic or even post-dramatic theater: the idea of ​​changing a difficult and unjust situation.

 [19] Josif Papagjoni, Tears for/from literature, Toena, Tirana, 2013, p. 136.

[20] Ibid., p. 19.

[21] Musa Ramadani, Speech on stage, Renaissance, Pristina, 1980, p. 158.

[22] There p. 159-160.

[23] Lubisha Georgijevski, part forgotten from the show's leaflet The living sphinx.

[24] Right there.

[25] Deme A. Jasiqi, The living sphinx, Renaissance, Pristina, 1978, p. 14.

[26] Right there.

[27] Right there.

[28] Right there.

[29] Thies Lehmann, Postdramsko kazalište, CDU, TkH, Zagreb, Belgrade, 2004, p. 176.

[30] Haqif Mulliqi, taken from the speech on the occasion of the promotion of this play, in the background of the Environmental Theater Festival, Podujevë, August 10, 2009, and published in the daily Kosovo today, July 16, 2009, p. 14.

[31] Marilyn Strathern, The Genderofthe Gift. Problemit homen and Problems it Society in Melanesia, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1988, p. 37.

[32] Right there.

[33] Vehap Shita, When the lights come on, Renaissance, Pristina, 1969, p. 84.

[34] Right there.

[35] Right there.

[36] Krešimir Nemec, Erveheja, ta sjajna predstavja, VUS, Zagreb, 1971, p. 19.

[37] Right there.

[38] Erveheja, drama by Ahmet Qirezi and directed by Muharrem Qena, produced by the People's Theater of Kosovo, in 1967 was declared the best play at the National Drama Festival in Novi Sad.

[39] Ivo Pervic, Erveheja, Politics, Belgrade, 1968, p. 24.

[40] Right there.

[41] Right there.

[42] Henrietta Louise Moore, Understanding Sex and Gender, Companion Encyclopedia of An- thropology, Routledge, London and New York, 1994, p. 814.

[43] Ali Ali, Streams of literature, Renaissance, Pristina, 1977, p. 165-66.

[44] Miroslav Kotik, Interview, Hugo Klajn, Zagwana Erveheja, Cultural Journal, Novi Sad, 1968, p. 4.

[45] Haqif Mulliqi, Interview with the doyen of the theater, Shani Pallaska, theater (drama and theater magazine, No. 1, February 1995), Drita, Kruše e Madhe, p. 54