Jovan Sterija Popovic, in his play, explicitly mentions only the two settings: “a street” in Act I and “Belgrade” in Act V. It was my decision to choose the courtyard of a pub for the setting of Act I, the room of Zutilov’s for the setting of Acts II and III, the council room for Act IV and some courtyard with plenty of apartments in Belgrade for Act V. It seemed to me that the pub is the natural meeting place of people who have nothing better to do, and the courtyard in which such people live appeared to be the natural meeting place of the fugitives. Milenko Serban provided one of his best scenographies.
No matter how emerged in dealing with all the possible tasks imposed on me by the staging of this comedy, I was, as indeed I always am, most interested in the interpretation of the play itself. In his play The Patriots, Sterija has, at least in my opinion, presented us with more than what he humbly deems “the private history of Serbian people”. Why only private, why only history, why only Serbian people? In my opinion, Sterija spoke of Man in general. Exactly this universal quality of Sterija’s bitter comedy was what I was guided by. Precisely for this reason I avoided too strong or prominent local accents, which both the actors and the audience hold so dear. As for the actors, I had the casting which, at that specific period in question, could only exist in Yugoslav Drama Theatre…
