Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/mzvkptl1p9
Zlatko Bourek’s Bećarac – A Monument to Ourselves
Saša Došen
; Akademija za umjetnost i kulturu Sveučilišta J. J. Strossmayera u Osijeku, Osijek, Hrvatska
Abstract
Bourek’s way of treating actors as puppets or as live figures has been presented using the example of the play entitled Bećarac (1998), in which Bourek, as author of the concept, visual artist and director, transformed the acting theatre – or the very visual dramaturgy thereof – into the theatre of figures or the theatre of freaks. It is an example of Bourek’s performance with people, but also of a play in which the artist’s dramaturgy of the overall visual character – from the well thought-through and richly symbolic shaping of the overall visual quality of the piece itself and mise-en-scène to stage movement – follows the way of thinking characteristic for puppetry, however in the grand proportions of the acting theatre.
Bećarac (1998), conceived and created by Zlatko Bourek and Sanja Ivić, brought to the grand stage of the Croatian National Theatre in Osijek typical masks from the Slavonian folklore. It is a paramount example of Zlatko Bourek’s intrinsic creative instinct, and his masterful figuration and stylisation, by the means of which he put living actors, treating them as life-size figures or puppets, on an even footing with the ideal of Craig’s idol – the super-puppet. The performance – staging of the artist’s inexhaustible life and creative energy – represents Bourek’s monument not only to the people and the spirit of Slavonia, but to himself too.
Keywords
Bourek; Bećarac; theatre of figures; theatre of freaks; actor treated as puppet.
Hrčak ID:
284554
URI
Publication date:
7.10.2022.
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