M an is such poultry, he for- gets everything, I don’t know what kind of pain he has, in the end he’ll always over- come and forget it, and continue to live... What a corpse... Poultry loves to live”- that is the motto of Petria Đorđević. She is the unforgettable heroine of the novel Petria’s Wreath by Dragoslav Mihailović, the film of the same name directed by Srđan Kar- anović (1980), but also the theatre play di- rected by Boban Skerlić, which will be per- formed at Belgrade’s Atelje 212 theatre in mid November. - That’s also the only motto that a per- son can follow to survive life, says Milica Mi- hajlović, the daughter of the novel’s author and one of three actresses who will portray Petria on the stage. Apart from being a wit- ness to the book’s creation and subsequent film adaptation, Milica is linked to this excit- ing work in another way. Her late professor, Predrag Bajčetić, insisted that she play the role of Petria in order to graduate from the Belgrade Faculty of Dramatic Arts in 1995. “Back then I didn’t consider that kind- ly, because I didn’t want to be in anyone’s shadow, not even my own father’s, and it’s only after a quarter of a century on the stage that I feel this doesn’t represent an emo- tional ballast for me,” she says. Then, after lengthy attempts at persuasion with her professor, she translated Ronald Harwood’s monodrama Guests, which impressed Ba- jčetić, convincing him to relent and per- mit her to complete her studies with an- other role. Nevertheless, her father’s novel was translated into 10 languages, and Petria remained a dream role for every actress. An uneducated peasant girl from a mining “It is only after a quarter of a century on the stage that I feel Petria doesn’t represent an emotional ballast for me,” reveals Milica Mihajlović to us, as she prepares to portray the famous character created by her father Dragoslav Mihailović - the character of an illiterate woman who uses her internal strength to position herself as a veritable human rock in the male world
– Tada to nisam smatrala za ume- sno, želeći da budem samostalna i svo- ja, a ne nečija ćerka, i tek nakon če- tvrt veka na sceni usuđujem se da na Petriju gledam kao na bilo koju dru- gu ulogu, bez dodatne odgovornosti – kaže ona. Tada je, nakon dugog ubeđivanja sa profesorom, prevela monodramu Gosti Ronalda Harvuda, čime je im- presionirala Bajčetića, pa je morao da popusti i dopusti joj da završi studije drugom ulogom.
Dragoslav Mihailović’s novel has been translated into ten languages, and Petria has remained a dream role for every actress Roman Dragoslava Mihailovića preveden je na 10 jezika, a Petrija je ostala rola o kojoj sanja svaka glumica
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