www.DrazanGunjaca.net

«The Emperor is naked» cries a boy in a tale by Andersen and thus puts an end to a generally accepted lie and hypocrisy. That is exactly how I perceive Dražan Gunjača, as that boy who told the truth outright. The difference is that in Dražen’s case it’s not only the attire, but a series of things which over the past ten years have so much pervaded our lives that we are no longer aware of their falsity. Having witnessed these developments, like most of us, before the TV set, he is writing about them like an insider, but also with a distance from the day-to-day politics and propaganda, allowing him to debunk an imposed bipolar black-and-white pattern «we» and «they», the good guys, the bad guys, showing how pointless it is when it comes to the so-called ordinary people. He does the same in this farcical tragedy whose protagonists are two officers of the former Yugoslav army, who find themselves at the opposite sides of the conflict.
Forced by developments beyond his control to «delete» all his previous life, ideals, moral standards, one of the two characters is left no choice but to try his hand at the Balkan roulette, a version of the Russian roulette, in which the player cannot possibly win. Placed in a situation to symbolically declare all his previous life null and void and to start a new life based on ideals and ethical values, a kind of life he refuses to share, his decision to end his life, not only symbolically but also really, appears quite logical. In this he is supposed to be assisted by his friend whom circumstances have forced to fight on the opposite side. Out of this underlying idea Gunjača has created a burlesque gallows-humor comedy with a tragic ending, where the one-time army and party commonplaces about brotherhood and unity are put to cathartic ridicule and where the final goal is a redemption of small people who have become hostages of big words. This work is therefore an elementary ethical act of sincerity, Christian love for all fellow men, including the Serbs. The author’s consistency in it is unconditional, no matter how unpopular it may be nowadays in this part of the world, and he deserves every credit for it.
Now, how this ethics is transformed into art is certainly also worth a few introductory words. Gunjača is absolutely familiar with the social and cultural milieu he is writing about, its jargon, its idiom, its tendency to hyperbolic expression, metaphoric and comparative exaggeration, which makes his text lively and deeply rooted in reality. Through the dialogues of his characters the author presents truths which are today largely unacceptable, but he does not hide them, does not fold them into the cellophane of some high-brow world outlooks the generality of which only relativizes individual human lots. Gunjača remains firmly down-to-earth, telling us about real people, real truths, while leaving philosophizing and hypocritical make-believe to others.
Godot has arrived. One night in the year 1991 in a flat where he is met not by Vladimir and Estragon, but Peter and Mario. This play will show the reader that waiting for Godot is better than meeting him.
Srđa Orbanić