Mira Trailović: Being alone in theatre (on the occasion of one hundred years since her birth 1924-2024)

Abstract

The centenary of the birth of Mira Trailović (1924-1989) is a formal occasion, but not the primary reason for reflecting on her professional activity and unique place in our culture. This paper focuses on aspects of Mira Trailović's public persona that do not belong to the dominant narratives about this theatre manager/leader and director. This means that we view her public persona beyond (or "beneath") attributes related to gender and the stereotypes that arise from them, as well as beyond the proverbial anecdotal domain in which she was often pigeonholed. We sharpen her place in the historical and political epoch, marking it as both an intellectually atypical and typical position. We especially focus on the fact, as well as her full awareness of it, that in the context of the complex political situation of the second Yugoslavia, and above all the traditionalist social model, she was alone. The radical thesis we propose is that from such a perspective, her professional biography is not paradigmatic but exceptional, given the persistent cultural pattern whereby a woman in our society enters and remains in the realm of "power games" primarily if defined by the figure of a close influential man (father, husband, etc.). In the second part of the paper, we address a segment of her activity that has also been neglected until now: directing in theatre. A case study within this framework is the play Čudo u Šarganu (Miracle in Šargan) by Ljubomir Simović (Atelje 212, 1975), realized based on the only domestic dramatic text that Mira Trailović staged.

Keywords

• mira trailović
• theatre
• manager
• direction
• 'čudo u šarganu'