The show ''Everyman ilas'' by Radmila Vojvodi (dramaturg Borka Pavievi) is inspired by

the fate of one of the most prominent Communist Party officials of the former Yugoslavia, and
later the most important Yugoslav liberal dissident Milovan ilas. Writing about the political
need for urgent and necessary liberalization of socialist constitution, and oposing persistently to a
policy of ''non-wavering'', he opened, exposing himself to police-propagand torture of the
regime, many important problems of Yugoslav state of the time. ilas's political critical ripening
and dividing from the global ideology of communism, the Party and ex fellow soldiers was the
process that began at the end of the World War II and ended at the end of nineteen fifties. ilas's
drama is placed by Radmila Vojvodi exactly in the middle of this decade the time of gradual
awakening of the society from the world of ideological fiction to the world of totalitary socialist
reality. The show, which text is partially based upon documentary facts, is organized through the
five scenes, that are designed as the five culmination points of ilas's personal and wider social
drama, the latter reflected in the previous.

The theme is indisputably interesting and important, because with the impending accession to
EU intensified interest for the concept of dissidence in communism is noticeable in all states
with former communist constitution in a way, it is response to the request to revalue proper
ideological history and assert the roots of liberalism. Besides, there is a certainty that the
ideological, i.e. Party class and today's reality of post-socialist coutries was imposed, i.e. the
break of communism did not mean the break of ''new class'' that ilas wrote about, but it
survived with ''its sloppy mimicry and chameleonically adapted itself nationally''. Nevertheless,
by a decision to show ilas as ''everyman'', Everybody (in the sense of Man as such), the
meanings of the show are utterly universalized, so much that it could almost be any ideological
matrix and any dissident. Anyway, ''Everybody'' is a type character from the middle ages drama
genre of morality, extremely simplifyed and didactical story in which Everybody goes for a
journey to death, and by the way, to save his soul, fights all expendable, wordly values,
impersonated in allegoric figures he meets. With changes of social reality, this character, even
though he survived in the tradition of drama, experienced various transformations, so the
majority of contemporary dramas in which he comes up put him in the absurd world without
God/Ideals, in which the alienated human have no reason to try and improve neither himself nor
the world around himself. In this drama ilas, although he comes from, in Fry's terminology,
highly mimetic modus (hero is a man, leader of the people, but at the same time succeptible to
natural order and social criticism), ends, although not definitely, but questioned, in irony modus,
as an absurd hero.

Ideas and meanings that ''Everyman ilas'' introduces, therefore, are very universal and simple,
so to speak, ''general points'': they range from the insight that every authority, no matter what
kind of revolutions it was born by and no matter what kind of ideals it was led by, in time
becomes corrupted and perverse, that each ideology expends and proves to be a delusion; that the
world is a theatre, a game and a lie, constantly grinded by the ever-repeated history; that each
generation has its own delusions, but everything that is old is still a little better,...,to a precious
message that the ideals, personal moral and individual act, and the passion, bravery and
persistence are still necessary for a life worth living. These meanings, that are not problematic by
themselves, are shown as such in this show because these public thoughts are not ''packed'' in an
elaborated, impressive and strong enough drama structure. Drama tissue is too ''dry'',
dispassionate: drama exists extremely through abstract speeches, (quasi)political and
philosophical debates in the form of replicas that are not effective enough on the stage, because
they are too long, complicated and abstract. Besides, in the speeches of the characters there is a
lot of repeating of the same, spinning around in an almost same dramatic mode, which tires
attention and deprives the shown and said of the power to emotionally touch and carries us more
strongly. On the other side, because of the contemplation of the general and generally known,
the power of more meaningful intelectual plot is lacking.

Stage performance in the manner of poetic realism is installed with a very emphatic, adjustedly
elegant, likeable and significant visuality. Greyish scene (scenographer Hans Georg Schafer) is
almost all the time sprinkled with dry leaves, that brings in the atmosphere of temporariness,
melancholic regret for the ideals that were ''strangled with one's own hands''. Narrowing and
enlarging of the scene space with mobile walls are also very significant, they carry a strong
symbolic meaning, by evoking a thought that even in a Hamlet-like nut shell (here it is a prison
and similar) one can be ''the king of an endless space'', whilst the oposite is not implied. Mise-en-
scnes are often slow, static and they form significant ''live pictures'', and the Leo Kula's
costumes are imagined very measuredly and tastefully.

Consistent to the style, performance is in a subtle, but meaningly essentially complex modus
between the basic psychological realism, and the tones of theatricality, affected exaggeration and
ironising. Irony is especially present in the interpretation of a small range of official's opinion,
expressed through ''formulations'' of the Party, which indicates narrowed and moulded mind,
which has no other aim than a need for uncontrolled rule. In a unified and precise performance of
the numerous ensemble, for the biggest challenge that was created by their roles, Tihomir Stani
distinguished as ilas, and Ana Vukovi in the role of his wife. Stani suggestively presented
strong inner breaks, conflicted emotions, passion for the truth and freedom, and decidedness to
creatively confront repressive consequences of his work, working even more. His creation of
ilas is additionally compounded by ocasional notes of ironical pathos and grotesque, which
leaves the possibility to question the meaning of ilas's ideas and ideals, old and new. With
admixtures of tragical resonance, Vukovi shaped his steady, righteous, supporting wife, in an
emotional and psychologically piercing way.

Interpreting historical events in a way in which they are for some time revaluated and commonly
accepted, and trying to make a picture of the world as a totality, by universalization of the
meaning, and without enough incisive parallel with the social environment, meanings of the
show ''Everyman ilas'' are largely in the domain of a cliche. Although thematically initially
essential, visually likeable and with a good acting-crew, staying ''in the zone of enjoyment'' and
measuring the dose of provocation so nobody is really disturbed, the show avoids to research and
problematize the questions it deals with in a deep, significant and more impressive way.