Director

I am interested in experimenting, in being able to search the stage, search one's character. I am not in the least bit interested in predetermined acting methods, in a storyline with a prologue, in the twists and culmination of plot – these are things you can do without. (Martin Kocovski in an interview for e-novine, 2008)

Martin Kocovski graduated in Theatre Direction from the New Bulgarian University of Sofia, where he has also started graduate studies. He has worked as a director since 2000, mostly directing the works of Bertolt Brecht, but also those of Macedonian dramatists Vojdan Černodrinski, Goran Stefanovski and Dejan Dukovski – at various Macedonian and Bulgarian theatres. He is also the author of several interdisciplinary and international projects, such as Casablanca and All About My Mother, which explore the relations between theatre and film. He has received many awards for his work at festivals in Macedonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Croatia. Kocovski also received an award at last year’s MESS Festival for his work on Brecht’s Drums in the Night. He is also a full associate of the Little Drama Theatre in Macedonia.

Performance

 Druga stran (The Other Side) is a play that tackles the question of the generation gap and the general collapse of motivation within two different storylines. Taking as his main motif the events of 1968 – from the self-immolation of Jan Palach as a form of silent protest against the terror of the occupiers, to the protests around the world against the war in Vietnam, to the tumultuous Prague spring – which, together, represent a revolutionary turning-point - director Kocovski confronts, in counterpoint form, the screams of one generation with the silence of another – of today’s generation. This play tries to explore what happened to the children of this revolutionary generation, a generation who wanted to raise its voice against the terror of totalitarianism, by asking why the new generation is lethargic, unable to take control of the public arena, unable to raise their voices. The Other Side is a chronicle of Man, a painful reminder that transition is the result of rebellion and a hope for a better tomorrow, a rebellion that can never be expressed, at a time when all illusion is broken.

The play was conceived within the glittering, glaring atmosphere of a disco, in which four couples, at four different points, attempt to reinvent, rediscover and grasp all the strings of their lives, while lost in time and space, and to bridge the gap that gapes between the individual and the collective.

Theatre

The Mal Dramski Teatar (Little Drama Theatre) was established in Bitola by former Macedonian Minister of Culture Blagoje Stefanovski in cooperation with a group of local theatre workers.

The Little Drama Theatre was the result of a desire to create theatre productions with a better quality of performance, innovation and subject matter. The goal of the theatre is to stage powerful, socially relevant and theatrically appealing plays, tackling the questions and problems of contemporary life. In fact, The Other Side is its first production, a play based on a text by Dejan Dukovski and directed by Martina Kocovski. Emphasizing the significance of this project, Kocovski said: There are no private theatres in Macedonia. The politics of state institutions are terrible: directors are forced to direct “pre-ordered” texts, to work with actors from a set political background, while the political system censors theatre as a whole, in a fascist way. This was the principle behind the effort to bring together a critical group of professionals, and establish the Little Drama Theatre. (e-novine)