The Use Value of Flying

The production explores the life and work of the first Yugoslav aviator Edvard Rusjan and the socio-political circumstances at the turn of the twentieth century. It is also inspired by the desire to connect actors and audiences in two locations – Nova Gorica and Belgrade – symbolically and concretely, in the production itself. Edvard Rusjan main ambition was this need for accelerated movement, diminishing distances and overcoming borders, not just in physically and geographically, but also in psychological, social, political and cultural sense.

The fascinating and exciting life of Edvard Rusjan came to its dramatic end on 9 January 1911: his long-planned and pompously advertised flight at Kalemegdan ended in a crash and his death. The entire Belgrade turned out for Rusjan’s spectacular funeral. Branislav Nušić, one of the most important Serbian playwrights, wrote the eulogy. Strahinja Ban, Nušić’s fifteen-year-old son, himself an aviation enthusiast, started the initiative to preserve the parts of Rusjan’s plane, which were the foundation of what later became the Aeronautical Museum in Belgrade.

These coincidences and the intertwining of fates between the Rusjan and Nišić families create a framework to explore intimate relationships between parents and children. How to support a child in their development of their own potential and goals, yet protect them from dangers and risks that go along with grand and daring dreams? The production will once more look into the importance of technological development and its impact on society, particularly in the context of pacifism and justice, which Bertolt Brecht explains in more detail in his Lehrstücke.

AIRMEN: Ages long all things fell in a downward direction except for the birds themselves. On the oldest tablets no one has come on drawings of human beings flying through the air. Only we found the secret. I was sharing in the researches of our comrades. As our planes grew better, we flew yet higher and higher. The oceans were soon mastered and even the mountains humbled.

CHOIR: The price of bread did not get cheaper. Rather did the poverty and need increase within our cities and long years have passed since anyone knew what a man is.

_{Bertolt Brecht (The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent, 1929)}