Incorrect Readings in the History of Serbian Drama: The Case of Milutin Bojić’s Gospođa Olga

Abstract

We point to methodological difficulties in studying the history of Serbian drama in the context of contemporary theatre and academia, especially with regard to revisionist shifts that are both unavoidable and to be welcomed in theatre history. With this in mind, we employ Harold Bloom’s well-known theory of revisionism and the necessity of incorrect readings to the domain of theatre studies and theatre history by analysing Milutin Bojić’s play Gospođa Olga [Mrs Olga] and the latest stagings thereof. Written shortly before World War I, the play was first staged six decades after the author’s death, and subsequently changed the perception of the early 20th century Serbian bourgeois play, both in academia and in theatres.
The paper comprises two sections: in the first section, we point out difficulties in studying Serbian plays, considering the long-lasting, chronic neglect thereof in our cultural historiography, as well as contradictions apparent in the academic study of them; in the second section, we focus on the two most recent stagings of Mrs Olga, those by Zlatko Paković and Gorčin Stojanović, and use them to corroborate the thesis that the main impetus for reevaluating traditional drama has come not from scholars, but rather from theatre practitioners.
Both productions of Bojić’s play, even though substantially different from one another, are deemed as “incorrect readings”, which, according to Bloom, affirm and boost the effect of poetic influences. This has significant repercussions for the understanding of typological particularities of the Serbian bourgeois play, especially those concerning the absence of engagement with social issues, which has had an impact on the play’s fate in theatres that is still felt today.