ST. GEORGE SLAYING THE DRAGON

As its last premiere in the year 2024, Yugoslav Drama Theatre presented the performance St. George Slaying the Dragon, directed by Milan Nešković. The play, considered a contemporary classic of Serbian dramaturgy, written by Dušan Kovačević, a playwright, scriptwriter, and a member of Serbian Academia of Arts and Sciences, is still as relevant as it was at the time of its creation, forty years ago. Placing the story about a love triangle in a Serbian village at the beginning of the First World War among the people severely damaged, both physically and emotionally, by the Balkan Wars, the play explores the topics of love, pride, heroism, national mentality, and the scars that never seem to fully heal. Almost half a century later, when the breakup of Yugoslavia is behind us, and some new wars raging not so far away, this production is asking the same burning questions: what does it mean to be a hero, to be a man, to be valiant? What does it take to be loyal, and do various types of loyalty – to one’s country, to one’s family, to one’s true self – conflict with each other? And if they do, how does a man choose?