Aleksandar Isakov, the guest from Russia and long-term associate of the National Theatre of Bitola, is a meritorious artist of Russia, chief director of Saint Petersburg National Theatre of Musical Comedy. He is head master of the department for directors and actors at Saint Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions.
The play “Divine Comedy” by Isidor Shtok is his fourth play at the National Theatre of Bitola. His collaboration with this theatre starts in 1997 with the play “Marriage” by N. Gogol, following “I travel, I travel…” by N.Kolyada (2001) and “Munchausen”  by G. Gorin (2011).
Even though the title “Divine Comedy” has always been deeply connected in our conscience to the name of the legendary Dante Alighieri, this play is not connected with the former. The Soviet dramaturgue was inspired to write this play by the cartoon cycle of the French artist Jean Effel, published in four albums titled “The Creation of the World”. Effel depicts the biblical version of the creation of the world in an original, witty and humorous way for the general public. Those motives serve Shtok to build ironical, but at the same time lyrical dramatic action, centered around love between a man and a woman.

Olivera Pavlovikj

* * *

The play “Divine Comedy” tell the story of the birth of love on the earth. There is no heaven that can replace those feelings. What if Adam and Eve hadn’t asked for the forbidden fruit and hadn’t been afraid of the wrath of God? Their children wouldn’t have been born, as well as the children of their children.  We wouldn’t have had them today, too. And undoubtedly, our play wouldn’t have existed.

Aleksandar Isakov