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In the official competition of the oldest festival of small and experimental scenes in our country

Žika has a huge head. How does he just walk, how does he go down the stairs with that big wobbly mass?

— Let’s try to record how Žika coming down the stairs – says Pop, author of photographs accompanying this text.
— Alas, please don’t – says Iva.
— Why, is that impossible?
— No, you know, it’s a little inconvenient…
— ?
– Our neighbours consider us a little crazy. Or even more than a little bit, you know…

And when you think about it, it is really a fortunate circumstance that, since we persuaded Iva, not a single neighbour went up the stairs at that moment. It would not be easy to meet Žika so suddenly. Imagine, one big-headed puppet with tiny living legs sways towards you down the stairs. It wouldn’t be easy, it wouldn’t…

‘PATIENT – SAVED’

Well, what, it is not easy for Iva Kostović-Mandić and Petar Mandić, a young married couple, whose creation is Žika’s. Neither to make Žika and other puppets and masks, nor suffer that they consider you crazy because of that. Nor to live from this “madness” all dedicated to it, in a time when people work, in a time when they don’t work, when they sleep, when… But, there is also a saying – “All things come to those who wait”!

Because, at this year’s MESS, Sarajevo’s oldest festival of small and experimental scenes in our country, the audience will in the official competition see the married couple, whose guests we are right now. “Maska i Pokret”, as they are officially called, will present themselves with the play “Somebody has Killed the Play”. We will see what it is and how far it has come; until then, we trust the official selectors, who in a large offer gave their votes for Iva and Petar and their endeavour. In order to get to MESS it was needed to cross some road, make some effort, shed some tears, deserve some smile, some applause, and everything that goes with it. What is it like and how long was this road?

Iva is now a graduated dramaturge, Petar graduated from the ballet studio of the National Theatre in Sarajevo. They are not employed, they do not have time from their love, their work – masks and movements. It’s been like that for five years. Since five years ago, they have been making a series of plays, they have always collaborated with young people whose enthusiasm had a similar direction. Now they are alone, with masks, with their play that somebody has killed. Neither at the end nor at some new beginning of his research. They are simply on the path they have chosen…

 GROTESQUE PHASE

— My father is a sculptor – says Iva, — and I grew up in an atelier. In an atmosphere where faces were formed from clay, where it was important to capture the expression, character, and meaning of the message that the face carries. It seems to me that the most mark on me has left, that the closest to me in understanding inner person is, the grotesque phase, let’s call it like that, of turning clay into a man. Hence, most likely, my inclination, my need to deal with the mask, first trying to shape it and then to use it in the play, in narration, in cooperation with the world, in conveying some of my own or interpreting some other messages and meanings. … Of course, that part of the narration that makes up the body and its capabilities is mostly Petar’s job.
And so intimate world, almost a game of two young people, enters a serious circle of official and serious festivals, in competition with those who do their work, such and similar, professionally, recognised and for money.

Exactly, how do these two young people, how and from what do they live, do their performances bring them any income? Almost none, but still, mostly, they make a living from it.

They guest appear in cultural centres and some gatherings in the city, but also outside of it and outside of the Republic. Most performances, however, were played in the attics of the city, for the crowd, just like that. They also played in their room…

There would always be, they told us, somewhere a box with a hole in which a voluntary donation could be inserted. And it would always literally be empty unless there was someone of close relatives at the performance, someone “in charge” to help them.

But, they are persevering and hoping to be able to prove that they have made something new, become official.

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