FRIDAY, July 1st 19,30
CARTE BLANCHE Theatre
April Productions, Canada and Bitef Theatre, Serbia
The Vindication of Senyora Clito Mestres
Author: Montserrat Roig
Director and Cast: Dragana Varagić
Set Design: Snežana Pešić
Projection design: Vojin Vasović
Camera: Božo Vasić
Behind two real stage curtains and one virtual, two Clitos, two actresses, one on video and one on stage, are practising for the role of Clytemnestra in two languages. Joined together, they will erase the boundaries between life and theatre.
In the monodrama Vindication of Senyora Klito Mestres (1990), written by Catalan novelist Montserrat Roig, the mythical and the real world intertwine. Having returned to the stage after 20 years, we see Mrs Clito Mestres sitting in the theatre dressing-room, preparing for her role as the ancient queen Clytemnestra. In the confined space of a dressing-room, which connects the real world to the theatre illusion, her transformation begins from a woman who had no will of her own into a woman taking control over her life.
This adaptation was created as an intersection of the 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional world, blurring lines between fiction and reality, the past and the present. It joins together the two selves, the onstage persona and the filmed one, in a story about reconciliation and redemption, linking the classical Greek myth to its modern version.
“I have decided to direct this play because of its themes - the home, the house, the heart and the sacred bounds that tie us to them and keep us going even in the hardest of times. These themes struck me as the most important of all. I liked playing with theatre conventions and perspectives, colours and their absence. My actress goes through three stage curtains, real and virtual, who define and separate space, and exists in two distinct realites at the same time. Working on this project made me ask new questions about bilingualism – does language define our identity? In Toronto the play was in English, but this time Dragana the director, convinced Dragana the actress, to make the play bilingual. We will see if this brings answers, or only new questions.”
Dragana Varagić
Actress, director, artistic director of April Productions (Toronto, Canada). Her acting credits in Canada include theatre roles in: Have I None (April Productions), Not My Story (April Productions/Artword), Biography: A Game (Atrium Theatre/Artword), The Vindication of Senyora Clito Mestres (April Productions), Daughters of Sheherezad (Modern Times Stage Company), The Witch of Edmonton, Scenes From and Execution, To Damascus (EST), Pauline and Turgenev (GCTC), The Catalan Plays (Persephone Theatre). As a leading actress of the National Theatre in Belgrade she starred in classical, as well as modern plays: Natasha Rostova (War and Peace), Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Lady Anne (Richard III), Helena Charles (Look Back in Anger), Elizabeth Proctor (Crucible) and others. Her acting credits in Serbia include: Sisters (Sestre), Apartment Block (Soliter), Čaj u pet (Tea at 5). Her tv show appearances include: Svetozar Marković, Vuk Karadžić, Aleksa Šantić, Factory Stories (Priče iz fabrike), Banjica...Her film credits include: Pursuit (Progon), Great Transport (Veliki transport), The Elusive Summer of ’68 (Varljivo leto ’68). Her directing credits include The Penelopeid, a Canadian-Montenegrin co-production for Purgatorio Theatre Festival, Not My Story (Toronto Artword Theatre), Snow White and Her 7-8 Helpers (Solar Stage), Dantes Divinus (Dalhousie Universtiy), Princess T. (Centre for Graduate Studies of Drama, University of Toronto) and Last Days of Judas Iscariot.
Critics’ Reviews
Canadian theatre critics have only words of praise for The Vindication of Senyora Clito Mestres, Stage Door - “Varagic gives a wonderfully complex performance, both on stage and in the film... The interaction between the two Clitos is so natural you tend to forget that the filmed Clito is not real.”
Toronto’s weekly news and entertainment voice, Now Magazine, had this to say about the play:
“ As she proves in The Vindication Of Senyora Clito Mestres, in which an extraordinary woman rediscovers her life and her craft when she returns to the stage, Varagic is mesmerizing to watch.”
A WORD FROM THE SELECTOR
The mythical and the real world intertwine in this monodrama through the dialogue of the actress on stage and the virtual actress on the screen. This play was imagined as an intersection of a two-dimensional world and a three-dimensional one, where fiction and reality, the past and the present, are permeated with a tale of reconciliation and redemption, combining the ancient Greek myth with its modern variation.
