An Essay on THE PROFESSIONAL

The following is an essay I found from this website. Dramaturgical goodness.


Serbian Secret Service Strikes Back: Dušan Kovacevic's Profesionalac (The Professional, Serbia-Montenegro)

Devotees of stage and screen should recognize The Professional at a glance. The original stage version of Dušan Kovacevic's Profesionalac has been running at the Zvezdara Theatre in Belgrade (where Kovacevic also happens to be the manager) almost nonstop since its premiere there in 1990. A few years later, after the play had been performed to packed houses at the Zvezdara for the 100th time, it was translated into English and given a public reading at a theatre in Berkeley, California - again to enthusiastic response. The word spread - and, in 1992, The Professional was staged at the North Beach Repertory Theatre in San Francisco. A few months later, it was performed in London at the little Offstage Downstairs theatre. In 1994, the play was adapted as a telefeature by German writer-playwright Ulrich Plenzdorf to the similar milieu of the "Stasi" (the secret police of former German Democratic Republic) - when it fit like a glove. Andreas Dresen directed this adapted version under the title The Other Life of Herr Kreins. Then, in 1995, The Professional had premiered at the Circle Theatre in Manhattan, an off-Broadway venue. Now, at this year's Montreal festival, Profesionalac is running in competition in its original Serbian-language version - directed by its author, Dušan Kovacevic.

The Professional has the give-and-take of a Beckett play. The setting is postwar Belgrade. Luka, a former officer in the Serbian Secret Service, pays a visit to the office of Teja, a former intellectual dissident, who now heads a publishing house and hold a position of power in the cultural and political circles of the new Serbia. In typical "Endgame" fashion Luka carries with him a suitcase that contains everything of literary importance to the former dissident - in fact, much more than the writer Teja would care to know, for as a conscientious agent the stranger has been shadowing his intellectual partner for 40 years and knows all his secrets. During the sparring match, a hyped game of one-upman­ship, the ex-dissident is forced to admit that he wasn't such a coura­geous writer after all. Indeed, his "shadow" could easily publish a bestseller based on the true story, if he so desired, simply because he has written everything down. So, once again, the tables have been com­pletely turned.

Born 1948 in Mrdjenova, Yugoslavia, Dušan Kovacevic graduated from the Belgrade Academy of Film, Theatre, Radio and Television. Working in both film and theatre, he immediately made a name for himself as one of the countries best screenwriters in the genres of comedy and satire. Among his commercial and artistic hits were Goran Paskaljevic's Special Treatment, Goran Markovic's Burlesque Tragedy, Slobodan Sijan's Who's That Singing Over There?, and Emir Kusturica's Underground. On occasion, he directs his own screenplay: Balkan Spy was awarded Best Screenplay at the 1983 Montreal World Film Festival. Asked about what drives him to write about Yugoslavia, and now Serbia-Montenegro, with a sharp pen, he responded in an interview: "If next month we were lucky enough to embark on a new path, it would be my pleasure to begin writing about lovers hiding in closets when the husband has unexpectedly returned home. But that would mean that this region has embraced a new civility life. And then the Serbs would have terrible literature, but could finally live like other normal people. When that happens, I would agree to stop writing dramas of dread and horror - and inspiration would abandon me as well."