The Wizard

“If you decide to revive a great writer through theatrical texts, you will a priori be limited by the number of words and the running time (and also by some other means of expression). It is always troublesome and uncertain and one might ask: how to dare? If that writer is also one of the most important and productive writers of the first half of the 20th century, such as Thomas Mann, it becomes even riskier. Fedor Šili, thanks to his experience and intuition, knew that the only solution to this problem is knowledge and love, but also courage, which produces creative impudence. So we have a text that covers the literary and personal life of Thomas Mann from his school days to complete maturity. All the important moments of his life are covered by succinctly produced pictures, excellently chosen details, short dialogues and the economy of action (the text evokes doubleand simultaneous scenes, a technique reminiscent of another Liješević show, Elijah’s Chair). (...) However, under this surface there lies a real personal, lifelong drama of a man who was too aware of his greatness, and who, at the end of his life, inevitably came to question his own behavior. Conditional adultery with poor performance, the Nazi son of his unrequited love, cruelty towards his own children and the usefulness of his spouse, the tragedy of a child, sexual insecurity, destroyed friendships, alcoholism... these are the main topics of the show. Mann’s main dilemma is confessed to the fancy judge, his own literary Mount Olympus embodied in the figure of the divine conversationalist, Goethe himself: whether he would have been treated better if he had «lived, loved and praised God in the blessed commonness»? With this rhetorical question both Mann and Šili might want to say that everything is subject to review, but without remorse, even the undeniable life of Thomas Mann.The Wizard goes beyond its association with The Magic Mountain: it is a meta-analysis of Thomas Mann, that allows us to understand him in a more literal and dramatic way, beyond the concept of the Genius and more as a wizard.” (Vladislav Bajac)

Boris Liješević (1976, Belgrade) graduated from the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad in 2004, where he currently works as an assistant at the Department of Intermedial Directing. Liješević usually directs plays by foreign authors of different generations and mainly younger domestic authors. With The Waiting Room project, Boris Liješević and Branko Dimitrijević have imported verbatim drama and verbatim theatre from Germany to Serbia. Boris Liješević debuted at the Sterijino pozorje festival in 2007, as an assistant director in to Tomi Janežič. For The Waiting Room, he was awarded the Special Sterija Award in 2010. The Fertile Days, a show he both wrote and directed, was featured at Sterijino pozorje festival in 2012.

The first performance in the building of the Sombor National Theatre was played on the 25th of November 1882. The building was built by the Stock Company of Sombor Theatre which was founded in 1879 by the citizens of Sombor. Since then the theatre has been working continuously. Some of the best Serbian directors have started their careers in Sombor National Theatre and some of the most significant Serbian and foreign theatre classics have been played here, but we aim to keep up with the new and avantgarde dramatic literature as well. The most significant managers of Theatre were Žiga Jasenović and Nikola Peca Petrović. They positioned the theatre very high among all Serbian theatres. In the last two decades, Sombor National Theatre has been one of the most active theatres in the country. Since 1993, Sombor National Theatre finishes each season with a festival, the Theatre Marathon. During the event, performances are played for three days and three nights –the programme includes performances produced by Sombor National Theatre, as well as shows by other theatres, companies and drama schools.