The Bald Soprano premiere opens new season at NPM

With great applause and encores, the audience at the National Theatre Mostar welcomed the ensemble of the play “The Bald Soprano” by Eugène Ionesco, whose premiere opened the National Theatre Mostar's new artistic season, 2017/2018, on Friday, reports Patria News Agency.

The play is directed by Lajla Kaikčija, adapted and dramatized by Adnan Lugonić, and designed by Sabina Trnka. The cast includes Emir Sejfić, Maja Zećo, Emir Spahić, Dina Mušanović, Andrea Aković, and Saša Oručević.

- After the premiere, I can only say that all the work and effort that the actors and the entire team at the National Theatre Mostar put into such a complex and demanding play as Eugène Ionesco's 'The Bald Soprano' was not in vain. I am happy and satisfied. I think this play has a long life ahead of it, and I wish all the best for future performances because it will get better and better each time. I am very satisfied - said director Kaikčija after the premiere.

“The Bald Soprano” is a non-classical comedy, an absurdist play. In this text, Ionesco deals with people, characters, and their inexhaustible need to talk.

- Like Ionesco, we, the play's team, wanted to express our protest against the society we live in and the state we are in through 'The Bald Soprano' using the effect of the 'wondrous', irony, nonsense, and caricature. The Bald Soprano mocks the inexhaustible need of people to constantly talk, to have an opinion on everything, and to be up-to-date with all events - most often the most banal ones. Speech is brought to absurdity. Words lose their meaning. Thought is devalued. As long as a voice comes out of the throat, speech does not stop. And so on indefinitely. And every form of action, of doing, is absent. And someone uses that. Some from within, others from without.

Am I talking about life or about the play? It doesn't matter. Unfortunately, there is no more meaningful place to set Ionesco's absurdity than in Mostar. Driven by the thought that some new kids will see Ionesco's play in the theatre for the first time and perhaps be provoked by it (in whatever way) and finally decide on some form of action... That is the only way out of the absurdity we are living - wrote Kaikčija about the play.

The first rerun of the play “The Bald Soprano” at the National Theatre Mostar is on Saturday, September 16, at 8 PM, and the second on Friday, September 22, at 8 PM.

Already next month, “The Bald Soprano” will be guesting at the Bosnian National Theatre Zenica - on October 19.