PETAR – brief project info

petar plakat cir

The idea for PETAR came as a result of cooperation and partnership between Sharikompaniet (Stockholm, Sweden) and Society for Animation and Development of Children's Drama Creativity (Belgrade, Serbia) that was established within the FELICIA project.
In project PETAR we will deal with problems of young people growing up in dysfunctional families, struggling with stigma, exclusion and misunderstanding of the broader society. Young people and their problems (in the local context) will be in our focus. Growing-up is not easy, but it is even more difficult if some mistakes are made (misdemeanour acts, crimes).

Why did that happen? How does Petar, (the main character of a monodrama that we will create) look upon that now? We will deal with development problems of young people from the perspective of a young man in his 20-ees. He is making his first steps in ‘the big world’ but he is carrying a burden of some previous acts. His full maturity is not reached yet; we would like to present a process that could challenge some of the views of the audience and provoke further thinking. Our plan is to create Petar’s background starting from selected social problems. Even if the biggest focus may be put on one (juvenile delinquency), several others will be part of the profile. Survey/research will be conducted prior to the text writing. We will interview young men who had ‘troubled youth’ and similar development problems like Petar. The main goal of interviews is to help us understand problems and create a character that thinks and speaks like a person who had similar experiences in his life. The story and concrete events mentioned in monodrama will be result of our fiction – information that our interviewees will present to us will not be part of the text. We expect to get valuable information also from experts who have long experience from working with young people with problems in their behaviour.
Implementation of the project started in March 2014 and is expected to be finalized by December 2014.
Project PETAR is financially supported by the Swedish Institute (SI) within its Creative Force Programme.  

Project PETAR

A theatre play “Petar” is a story about young man in late twenties who is struggling with problems of everyday life. Petar looks like the next door boy, nice but critical about lack of lack of sincerity and understanding in modern world. As the story goes on, we realize that his character is determined by many factors and that some are very serious and even upsetting. Petar is now in one of those situations when someone’s life could change dramatically. In those stressful circumstances his story gets new and unexpected turnovers. His monologues will reveal a story about a boy who was neglected by his patents, who had constant conflicts with his father and very poor relations with mother who barely noticed him. Lack of love and understanding in during his early years has affected his relations with other people but also his attitudes and respect of social norms and regulations. Petar remembers his childhood and teenage years so we get chance to learn about a boy who has done things that were harmful both for himself and the community he was living in. He also tells us about last few years of his life, about a young man who’s turbulent and troubled youth is known only to a small number of people. What has changed? What did Petar get/what did he lose/what did he learn, so he is not the same guy he used to be? Action of the story takes place in one day, between morning and evening, and finishes with ‘waiting for the response’.