Safet Plakalo

Safet Plakalo (born March 4, 1950) is arguably the most prominent living Bosnian playwright and one of the few South Slavic writers of poetic dramatic orientation. His unique dramatic expression integrates the precise poetic form of a sonnet deeply into a dramatic form. Image File history File links Safetplakalo. ... March 4 is the 63rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (64th in leap years). ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... A playwright is someone who writes for the theatre. ... This article or section should be merged with List of South Slavic languages South Slavic languages is one of the three groups of Slavic languages (besides West and East Slavic). ... Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch, one of the best-known of the early Italian sonnet writers The term sonnet is derived from the Provençal word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning little song. ...

Having written his first play, Vrh (The Peak), at the artistically tender age of 26, he still holds the honour of being the youngest playwright in the theatrical history of Bosnia and Herzegovina whose play was staged by a professional theatre. The success of Vrh had secured him his first commission to write a play about the 1941 anti-fascist insurgence in Romania. Though one of his best plays, Iza šutnje's (Beyond Silence) attempt to demistify Slaviša Vajner Čiča, a Partisan leader at the heart of the events, displeased Bosnian political censors. As a result, the play was swiftly taken off the repertoires of the four out of five leading Bosnian theatres. The fifth one, in Banja Luka, never attempted to stage it. For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Banja Luka (Serbian: Бања Лука/Banja Luka, Bosnian: Banja Luka/Banjaluka, Croatian: Banja Luka) is the second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and is also the capital of the Republika Srpska entity, as well as a major center of the region known as Bosanska Krajina. ...

Plakalo wrote his third play Nit in the middle of the censorship battle, but disheartened by the outcome and the inconprehensible attitude of the Bosnian theatrical world towards 'home-grown' dramatic literature, he temporarily gave up on writing to become a theatre critic. It was a personal tragedy that made him return to his dramatic and poetic roots with an autobiographical memento mori to his tragically killed wife, Sonja, Phoenix je sagorio uzalud (Phoenix Has Burnt In Vain). On his 36th birthday, and ten years after his first play, he finally saw another of his works premiered on a theatre stage.

His doubt, however, didn't leave him and it was only at the request of his great friend and the doyen actor of the Bosnian theatre, Safet Pašalić, that he agreed to write Kulin IV (Kulin the Fourth). As destiny would have it, the great actor passed away not long after the work's completion, and Plakalo decided not to follow through with the production. By the end of the fourth decade of his life, while his daugther Tamara was still a girl, Plakalo completed three more dramas, all three of them (Koncert za klavir i svjetlost, Preparirano proljeće and Balada o Modrinji), for children.

What followed was his most significant drama to date, Lutkino bespuće (A Doll's Wasteland), Plakalo's 'reply' to Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (Nora). Lutkino bespuće earned Plakalo a reputation as the 'Ibsen of Bosnia' both at home and abroad. The play caught the eye of the Columbia University Ibsenologist, Professor Sandra Saari, and Norway's Ibsen Stage Festival, but another twist of fate put Plakalo's international plans on hold as his beloved Sarajevo came under siege in 1992.

A photo from the original war production of Sklonište

In the city paralised by war, Plakalo and three of his close friends and collaborators, Gradimir Gojer, Đorđe Mačkić and Dubravko Bibanović, decided to form Sarajevo War Theatre (SARTR) as a form of spiritual resistance to the madness of war. Together with Bibanović, Plakalo embarks on writing Sarajevo's first authentic war play - Sklonište (The Shelter), in which he explored the genre of grotesque as the only meaningful approach to the tragedy that surrounded them. During the next 12 months, Sarajevans braved shelling, snipers and hunger to see Sklonište 97 times, often under candle-light. The theatre's ensamble did the same for its audience taking the performance to the front-line on more than one occasion. Image File history File links Skloniste. ... SARTRs logo, copyright SARTR 1992 Sarajevo War Theatre (SARTR) was founded on 17 May 1992 on the initiative of Dubravko Bibanovic, Gradimir Gojer, Djordje Mackic and Safet Plakalo. ...

In 1994, at the hight of the siege, Plakalo wrote a letter to his friend Stein Wing, director of the National Theatre of Norway, and with support from Waclav Havel, Ingemar Bergman, Ellen Horn and Bibi Anderson, the troupe made its way through the famous Sarajevo life-line, the tunnel, to make its first international appearance at the Ibsen Stage Festival in Oslo. Since then, SARTR has made over a hundred appearances around Europe, and collaborated widely, most notably with the Valencian dramatist José Sanchís Sinisterra, and Bordeaux's Globe Theatre. County Oslo NO-03 Landscape Viken Municipality NO-0301 Administrative centre Oslo Mayor (2004) Per Ditlev-Simonsen (H) Official language form Neutral Area  - Total  - Land  - Percentage Ranked 224 454 km² 426 km² 0. ... SARTRs logo, copyright SARTR 1992 Sarajevo War Theatre (SARTR) was founded on 17 May 1992 on the initiative of Dubravko Bibanovic, Gradimir Gojer, Djordje Mackic and Safet Plakalo. ...

The Memoirs of Mina Hauzen, another Plakalo's play, was SARTR's first post-war production. However, despite their immense popularity, neither Sklonište, nor The Memoirs had a lasting effect on Plakalo's dramatic orientation. As the world around him returned to an uneasy peace, Plakalo returned to his primary interest - the theatre of human intimacy, penning an hommage to his mother in the play about Prophet Muhammed's daughter, Fatima. The most complex of his plays, Hazreti Fatima marks Plakalo's return to another interest - poetic drama, demonstrating his T.S. Elliot-inspired need to address the reader in a strict poetic form with rare erudition and piety. His fascination with the fundamental philosophical issues of women's existence soon found another expression in the play Smrt i čežnja Silvije Plat (The Death and Desire of Sylvia Plath), another hommage, this time to the great American poetess. SARTRs logo, copyright SARTR 1992 Sarajevo War Theatre (SARTR) was founded on 17 May 1992 on the initiative of Dubravko Bibanovic, Gradimir Gojer, Djordje Mackic and Safet Plakalo. ... Muhammad (Arabic محمد, also transliterated Mohammad, Mohammed, and formerly Mahomet, following the Latin) is revered by Muslims as the final prophet of God. ... Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888 - January 4, 1965), was a major Modernist Anglo-American poet, dramatist, and literary critic. ... A self-portrait circa 1951. ...

Plakalo was also the spiritus movens behind the famous 1969 Poetic Marathon, is a former journalist of Oslobodjenje, Večernje novine, and Sarajevo "202", and a respected theatre critic. He lives and works in Sarajevo, where he is still at the helm of SARTR. His first novel, Plod smrti, is currently being prepared for print. 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday For other uses, see Number 1969. ... A critic (from Greek κριτικός, kritikós - one who discerns, from Ancient Greek κριτής, krités, a judge) is a person who offers judgement or analysis, value judgement, interpretation, or observation. ... Coat of Arms of Sarajevo Ferhadija street, the most popular pedestrian street in Sarajevo. ... SARTRs logo, copyright SARTR 1992 Sarajevo War Theatre (SARTR) was founded on 17 May 1992 on the initiative of Dubravko Bibanovic, Gradimir Gojer, Djordje Mackic and Safet Plakalo. ...

Bibliography

Plays

• Vrh (The Peak)
• Iza šutnje (Beyond Silence)
• Nit (In vino veritas) (The Thread)
• Koncert za klavir i svjetlost (Concert for Piano and Light)
• Preparirano proljeće (The Stuffed Springtime)
• Balada o Modrinji (A Ballad about Modrinja)
• Phoenix je sagorio uzalud (Phoenix has burnt in vain)
• Kulin IV (Kulin the Fourth)
• Balada o ex-šampionu (A Ballad about an Ex-champion)
• Lutkino bespuće (A Doll's Wasteland)
• Sklonište (The Shelter)
• Memoari Mine Hauzen (The Memoirs of Mina Houzen)
• Hazreti Fatima (Fatima Az-Sahra)
• Omer za naćvama, libretto based on a play by Alija Nametak
• Soba od vizije (Chambre des Visions) (A Room of Vision)
• Smrt i čežnja Silvije Plat (Désir et mort de Sylvia Plath) (The Death and Desire of Sylvia Plath)

Novels

• Plod smrti, forthcoming

Articles and publiations

• MAK, 1917-1997

References

• Knežević, Maja, "A letter about the author" in Plakalo, Safet, Hazreti Fatima
  
• Vujanović, Vojislav, Review, Bilten Pozorišnih Igara u Brčkom, 7 November 2004