Closing ceremony of the festival Theatre play “Alice in Fearland”

“Alice in Fearland”

by Eva Mahkovic

Directed by Aleksandar Popovski

Yugoslav drama theater Belgrade, Serbia

The play Alice in Fearland was inspired by episodes from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. When she was a girl, Alice believed that six impossible things may happen before breakfast. Now, she is a big girl in her thirties. She is supposed to have a career, a family. She should have become successful, stable and grown-up. What she does have is a new therapist and together they travel around her head. When she was a girl, there were wonders all around her – caterpillars smoking hookahs, talking cards, grinning cats, tea and cakes, hysterical birds. This was a world where new excitements awaited at every step, a world of possibilities for endless wonders. Now, it is a land full of doubts and fears. And yet, there is still a chance of a miracle…

Tic-tac, tic-tac the clock is ticking. The biological clock or time keeping, it doesn’t matter – time ticks off. Accept if it doesn’t stop. Does it fit in? Is it possible to stop time? How long do we have, and do we all have equal time? Are afraid of time because of our immediate surroundings or do we feel the pressure of time? In Fearland, as in Wonderland all happens at once, before time or at the same time. Everyone is in a constant rush, but always late. In such a world, the new Alice’s are trying to pave their way forward.

Aleksandar Popovski was born in Skopje, North Macedonia in 1969. He graduated from the University of “Ss. Cyril and Methodius”, Skopje, with a BA in Film and Drama. His first professional debut in theatre was in 1992, when he directed a play by the Macedonian author Dejan Dukovski. He also directed works by M. Ivaskevicius, W. Shakespeare, G.Stefanovski, M. Cervantes, B. Stoker, B. Srbljanovic, G. Büchner, J.-B. Molière, A. Lasic, E. Pega, M. McDonagh, S. Grum, A. Chekhov, B.-M. Koltès, D.  Harms, and F. G. Lorca. Many of the plays he directed have been staged in national theatres in Macedonia, as well as in international theatres in several countries including Denmark, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, Greece, etc. His film directing career started in 1993 with the omnibus motion picture Soft Gray (Mitrevski – Popovski – Janicievic), produced by  TRFZ Pegaz, Macedonia.

In 1995, he co-directed the TV series Boo, You Tailors! (with Darko Mitrevski), which was produced by the Macedonian National Television. In 1998, he co-directed the film Goodbye 20 th Century with Darko Mitrevski, produced by First  Partisans  Production, Macedonia. This film was featured in film festivals in Stockholm,  Barcelona,  Puerto Rico, CINEQUEST – San Francisco, Dresden, New York, Helsinki, Zurich, Calcutta, FEST Belgrade, Palm Beach, Palm Springs, Cottbus, Tromso, Ljubljana, Sarajevo,

Rome, Milan, Brussels, Stuttgart.

In 1999, the film Goodbye 20th Century won Melies d’argent at the Helsinki Film Festival for the best European fantasy film, the B – Movie award at the New York Film Festival for the best editing and best scenography, the King Nobel award at the First Internet Film Festival in Brussels, and the best actor award at the Fanta Festival in Rome. In 2008 Aleksandar Popovski directed the short featured film Metamorphoses, co-produced by Kino Oko Production and Partisans Production.

His film Balkan is Not Dead, produced by Kino Oko Production, is currently in post-

production. He is a guest lecturer at the University of Arts in Graz.

As of the 2018/2019 season, he is the artistic director of Maribor National Drama.

Since 2023, he has been a professor at the University for drama in Budapest, where he leads the theatre directing class.

Set design: Numen/For Use and Vanja Magic

Costume design: Mia Popovska

Music: Marjan Necak

Cast:

Milena Radulovic

Nebojsa Ljubisic

Sloboda Micalovic

Radovan Vujovic

Milan Maric

Jovana Belovic

Iva Manojlovic

Tamara Sustic

Denis Muric

Duration 2hr 10 min

The performance is not suitable for persons under the age of 14.