Theatre
Wild Flesh
Диво месо
Goran Stefanovski · 1979
Synopsis
Skopje, just before the Second World War. In the family house live Dimitrija, a former mason turned invalid, his wife Marija and their three sons: Simon, whom a sense of the absurd drives to drink, Stefan, an ambitious employee of a German company who dreams of Europe, and Andrej, a revolutionary activist. The father senses the coming war, and the German company, in the person of Klaus, wants to raze the house to enlarge its shop.
Context
Written in 1979, the play draws on what the author's father and uncles lived through during the war, and sets the values of Western Europe against those of the East. Translated into English under the title Proud Flesh, then Wild Flesh, it has also been translated into Spanish, Italian and Polish; Belgrade television made a film of it in 1981, and Dino Mustafić staged it at the National Theatre in Sarajevo.
Who it is for
In Macedonian, with no French translation; an English version appears in the anthology Ten Modern Macedonian Plays (2000).
Prizes and reception
Prize for the best Yugoslav play of the year at Novi Sad in 1980 and the October Prize; his most frequently staged play, studied in the country's secondary schools.