BELGRADE (SEEcult.org) - Belgrade International Theatre Festival (BITEF), one of the biggest and the most important in Europe, began on Septembr 15 with a powerful visual spectacle More or Less Infinity by the Company 111 from Toulouse, directed by Phil Soltanoff, and through September 28 will present another nine projects of some of the most important world directors, under the common theme “Tragicomedy - tragedy of our time”.

Related link: www.bitef.rs

According to BITEF-s selectors Jovan Cirilov and Anja Susa, this year’s BITEF focused on the phenomenon of manipulation with the notion of the tragic in the modern world, based on selectors conclusion, after they saw a host of productions, that the tragic quality of today's world as perceived by the theatre always turns into a tragicomedy.

One of the definitions of tragedy reads: "The very possibility of the tragic is associated with the social order as it presumes constant values to which the hero defers of his own free will. In the end, the order is always established, be it divine, metaphysical or human".

The question of that order on which the modern civilisation is based is, in fact, what makes today's theatre authors and their audiences laugh and what prevents the modern man, all too cynical and self-centred, to find himself at the centre of the tragedy along the lines of the ancient or Shakespearean model.

This selection thus brings together some of the most outstanding and prestigious names on the international stage who, each in his or her way, address modern phenomena, balancing on the thin rope stretched between the tragic and the tragicomic perception of the world they live in. They include artists like Marthaler, Goebbels and Gotscheff whom the Belgrade public already knows and artists who, although long present on the international theatre stage, come to Belgrade for the first time. It is, first and foremost, Meg Stuart, the American choreographer and dancer who lives and works in Europe.

Lack of Space is the title of Marthaler's production and an excellent metaphor for the present-day humanity and, clearly, a major tragicomic topic for the modern theatre.

According to Cirilov and Anja Susa, from Aristotle to Hegel to postmodernist theoreticians, the notion of the tragic in the theatre has received many different interpretations. Although the tragedy is one of the oldest theatrological terms which are almost self-explanatory, the definition of the tragic in the modern world, and the modern theatre, is by no means an easy task. The present-day world is replete with the tragic potential yet it is very intriguing how the present-day theatre responds to it.

It is clear that the reach of the theatre is limited and that television with its political programmes or reality shows has long substituted for the theatre as the place of catharsis. It is as clear that for a long time the average political life of a country has involved more elements of the classical tragedy (pathos, catharsis, tragic error etc.) than the modern theatre. Nevertheless the theatre has survived the battle with modern media and won for itself a particular space which may not affect the social order in any substantial way but can certainly challenge it, examine it and criticise it. And that is what it has been doing, more or less conspicuously and in a more or less revolutionary way, for several thousand years.

The main program, beside the French production More or Less Infinity, will present also three Serbian plays and six from abroad.

National Theatre in Belgrade is participating in this year’s BITEF with Oedipus Rex (Sophocles), directed by renowned Vida Ognjenovic. At the Belgrade Fair public will be premiered modern version of Mozart’s opera Don Djiovani, directed by Bojana Cvejic, while Andras Urban's Ensemble from Subotica will perform Brecht - The Hardcore Machine according to Bertolt Brecht’s “Buckower Elegies“, directed by Urban.

Rote Fabrik from Zurich will perform on Kolos Boat Christoph Marthaler’s Lack of Space, and Meg Stuart and Philipp Gehmacher will present Maybe Forever, a production by Damaged Goods and Mumbling Fish.

Unga Klara Company from Stockholm is participating with unique Baby Drama for babies old from six month to one year, directed by Suzanne Osten.

The New Riga Theatre will perform Sonja, after the story of Tatyana Tolstaya, directed by Alvis Hermanis, while Theatre Vidy from Lausanne will perform Heiner Goebbels’s Stifter’s Things.

BITEF will be concluded with The Persians by the Deutsches Theatre from Berlin, directed by Dimiter Gotscheff.