On the darkening green

ON THE DARKENING GREEN
A bear might visit The Darkening Green, or a monster could crawl out from deep underneath, and when shadows from the woods set in, the crocodile-stumps start moving.
In a ravine next to the Green, one could break a leg and shout for help in vain for days and remain there forever.
A child cries at night for mom to turn on the lights in the hall, because a bear comes and sits on the child’s chest.
Mother says there’s no bear, father says he’ll chase it away.
But mother knows that the bear exists and that the child knows the bear exists and that she is lying.
The bear may sit on everyone’s chest.
The bear is fear, the bear is illness, the bear is hatred, the bear is envy, the bear is madness, the bear is death.
The child knows that mother is lying.
No one can chase it away.
In the end, a monster is in each one of us.
Run, bear, run…
Milena Marković

MILENA MARKOVIĆ
Born in Belgrade in 1974. A poet, playwright and screenwriter. An Associate Professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. Plays (Selection):
Five Lives of a Too-Sad Milutin, Atelier 212, June 2018
Children of Joy, Atelier 212, November 2016
Boat for Dolls, Tap SZinhaz 2016, Hungary
The Dragonslayers, Yugoslav Drama Theatre, June 2014
Pavilions, or Where I Am Going, Where I Come from and What’s for Dinner, Black Tent Theatre, Tokyo 2010
Boat for Dolls, SNG Ljubljana , 2009
Boat for Dolls, Serbian National Theatre Novi Sad, 2008
The Woods Glisten, Atelier 212, October 2008
Tracks, TUTA Theater, Chicago, 2007
Un bateau pour les poupees, Festival D’Avignon, 2006
Orphan Simeon, Serbian National Theatre, May 2006
Tracks, Buhne, Aachen Theater, 2005
The Woods Glisten, Schauspielhaus Zurich, February,2004
Tracks, Yugoslav Drama Theatre, 2002
Pavilions, or Where I Am Going, Where I Come from and What’s for Dinner, Yugoslav Drama Theatre, 2000
Awards for plays:Sterija Award for best contemporary dramatic text for Dragonslayers, June 2015
Sterija Award for Boat for Dolls in 2008
Sterija Award for best contemporary dramatic text for Orphan Simeon in 2007
Special Award, Vienna, 2001, Theater M.b.H.
Published poetry and plays, selection of publications:
Bevor sich alles zu drehen anfangt, Edition Korrespondenzen, Vienna, 2017, a collection of poems, translated by Peter Urban
Poems for the Living and the Dead, Belgrade, 2015
Before Everything Starts Spinning, collection of poems, Belgrade, 2011
Bird’s Eye on the Fence, Belgrade, 2011
Black Spoon, Belgrade, 2007
The Truth in Heat, Belgrade, 2003
The Dog Which Ate the Sun, 2001
The Woods Glisten, French edition La foret gui scintille, A la maison d Evrope et d Orient, 2017
Puisse dieau poser sur nous son regard-rails, Le vaste monde blanc, Un bateau pour les poupees, l’ espace du on instant , Paris, 2006,
Poetry Awards:
Borisav Mihajlović Mihiz Award, 2005
Miloš Crnjanski Award, 2007
Todor Manojlović Award, 2009
Biljana Jovanović Award, 2010
Đura Jakšić Award, 2010
Films and awards:
Fatherland, directed by Oleg Novković, 2015, award for best screenplay at the FEST, Belgrade
White, White World, directed by Oleg Novković, 2010, best female role award and special art film award at the Locarno Festival, 2010, First Prize at the Cottbus Festival
Tomorrow Morning, directed by Oleg Novković, 2006, Best Screenplay Award, The Screenplay Festival, Vrnjačka Banja
The Miners’ Opera, a documentary directed by Oleg Novković, 2005

JOVANA TOMIĆ
Born in Belgrade in 1990. She finished her graduate and master studies at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, at the Department of Theatre and Radio Directing mentored by Professor Alisa Stojanović. Tomić directed Mr Biedermann and the Arsonists (Atelier 212), Cabaret Nušić (Zoran Radmilović Theatre, Zaječar), Lolita (Madlenianum), Barefoot in the Park (National Theatre Subotica), If twice rotates the weather vane/ Waiting for future (Paolo Grassi), Coming Out (Theatremacher), The Ridiculous Darkness (Atelier 212), Every Time Feels Like the First Time (Kruševac Theatre), Lysistrata (National Theatre Subotica), Nathan the Wise (Yugoslav Drama Theatre). Tomić won the first prize in the radio-play category at the “Neda Depolo” Competition organised by Radio Belgrade 2.