Vedran Dakić plays Duško Radić in Osijek's "Velvet Revolution", which we saw on the fourth night of the festival. For that role, he received the award for the best leading actor in a drama at the Croatian Drama Theater Awards. Before becoming an actor, Dakić studied agro-economics, as he admitted in one of his previous interviews, he doesn't even know why. Fortunately, from that detour, he returned to what he is dedicated to today - acting.
The play "Velvet Revolution" is the author's project of Vanja Jovanović and Matej Sudarić. It begins as a relaxed gathering of five young people before Duško Radić's graduation thesis defense, which will officially represent the end of one and the beginning of a different life for him. Radić's fears before the inevitable entry into adult life are the theme of this play, and they are actually the fears we all face when we find ourselves at a turning point. Actor Vedran Dakić spoke about those milestones and revolutions, but also evolutions, after the performance...
Your character is trying some revolutions, he is fighting at least against imaginary enemies, he is still brave, before some serious revolution eats him. With your own little revolution, have you ever managed to dig into some system?
Yes, I remember one that ended in victory. We were supposed to play this play at a festival where different stages were involved, and we got the stage where it was not possible to have adequate light as our play needs because for some scenes the atmosphere is built with specific light. Light plays a big role, and I don't believe that the play would have been successful if it hadn't been so accurately represented by the light. And at that festival, we received a light with which it was not possible to do it, for some strange reasons, but we also knew why it was done, why they gave us only three spotlights. I didn't want to back down, I insisted that we play on our stage and nowhere else, and it was a small victory, which meant a lot to me.
How many times a day do you succeed in those small victories?
Sometimes more, sometimes less. Every day something happens at rehearsal and it makes me stronger.
Revolutions lurk in each of us, as do fears. However, fears are easier to feel, more than courage. We are somehow elementally less brave for courage. People put up with incredibly senseless and wrong things. Why is it easier to suffer than to be brave, and when have we stopped being brave, when has convenience become more important to us than ethics?
I think it is precisely convenience that has led to the collapse of courage. I became aware of this at the moment when I realized that I could fall into it myself, looking at other colleagues and people in general. At some point, they obviously came to terms with a certain concept and state of affairs, they had enough, or they got tired, or they simply didn't care anymore. People very easily agree to something that is below their level. And I realized that the moment I noticed that I was starting to accept it myself. I got scared and snapped out of it. I said no, no and no. A distinction must be made, because otherwise you drown in it. You have a salary, you work a little, you buy this, you buy that and you think, that's it. But it isn't. Beyond that, there is something better and more important. It makes me sad when I see how bitter and unhappy these people are, they always have something to complain about. Acting is a special profession. It is actually a calling and it should only be pursued by those who feel that calling within themselves, because everything else is pointless. I can't imagine that someone went to the academy for five years, was locked in a black room for 12 hours, played this and that, and didn't like it, so that's incomprehensible to me. Commodity really catches people. I admit that I am also afraid of something like that happening to me.
In the Croatian theater, there were directors who knew how to start a revolution on stage because they worked on important and painful topics in ways that had not been seen before. Like Frljić, for example. Are there such creative revolutionaries today? Are there theaters where there are not 15 premieres and no performances, but those where the repertoire is planned?
There is something like that in all theaters, such material, but it is very important that the head of the theater is an educated person, a theater-educated person, and it is very important how he creates the team. It is important that they are also educated people, honest in their intentions and ideas, that they know why they do something and why they work with certain people.
And how can that be influenced, how can you as an actor influence that?
I would very much like to say that I can. But... I tried and I think that the only way to have an impact is with projects like the "Velvet Revolution". In Osijek, for example, no auditions for actors have taken place in the last ten years. So is that normal?! Who prevents us from auditioning? I understand, theaters have ensembles, and I'm in an ensemble, ok. Ensembles do co-productions and that's where new energy happens and that's great. And all that stands, but at the end of the day, why aren't auditions organized anymore. But no, it's our practice, we do three premieres, or five, these people do, when you ask what we're doing - the answer is it doesn't matter, don't worry, and you know you have to worry. You are like an actor on some kind of moving factory line waiting to do something mechanically and that's it. When you look at it, it looks like you're doing some work like people who work from 7 to 3, and an actor is not that - an actor doesn’t have set working hours. You are an actor all day, every day of the year, both on holidays and on Sundays. In addition, it is very important to know that an actor is not only what people see on stage, we learn the text at home, and where are the rehearsals... Acting work does not last only while the actor is on stage... And that's why education would be very important there.
Do you have ethics as a subject at the Academy? Is the something about work ethics?
We don't have that, but at our Academy Stanislavsky is the main subject, and he has an ethics of acting, which I think is very good and if people adhere to it - what theaters we would have! We go through all that during schooling, but it gets lost afterwards. Our academy is really good: either you learn or you leave. And you really learn everything, except how to deal with theater directors, management and colleagues, and all that awaits you beyond the stage and acting. When a young actor comes to the theater, they have no idea what they will encounter. They find themselves on unfamiliar ground, because at the Academy they were always protected, they had someone to rely on, someone would always tell them if something was wrong, if it wasn't good, what needs to be fixed... If they make a mistake, it's not the end of the world... That's why I think that there should be a course at the academies that would introduce acting students to that story, where they would be told what awaits them when they start a professional acting life. For example, we've been to a lot of festivals and this is the second round table we've been to. We didn't expect it to be like this, talkative, open. There, it's a sort of school, and it says a lot about the festival.
Snežana Miletić
Photo: Milana MIlovanov