346
DOI 10.51937/Amfiteater-2022-1/348-355
The question is, does national playwriting in Macedonia exist from 2010 until 2020 – 
or does it not? Why is that, after the Yugoslav, Balkan and European success of the 
Macedonian playwrights Goran Stefanovski and Dejan Dukovski, within the former 
Yugoslav countries and beyond, nobody knows anything about the new generations of 
playwrights from Macedonia? Why do they rarely stage the works of contemporary local 
playwrights? Among the reasons, we can consider academic crisis and artificially induced 
discontinuity; theatre clans, politicised media and false media independence or dealing 
with the chances of regular stagings and a theatrical career; political party employments 
in the only theatres in Macedonia – the national theatres. From Katerina Momeva, 
Blagica Sekulovska, Gorjan Milosevski, Srdjan Janacievic, Sasho Dimovski, Ivana Nelkovska 
to Igor Pop Trajkov, Mia Efremova, Mia Nikoloska, Lidija Mitoska Gjorgjioska, there are 
flirtations between contemporary Macedonian literature and contemporary Macedonian 
drama, which we might call opportunistic dramatic adaptations of prose and film scripts 
(successful adaptations and unsuccessful approaches). We see film scenario structures in 
the contemporary drama, the authors playing on two cards – film and theatre (the festival 
rise of the national film – the stagnation of the national theatre art and production). The 
author also looks at the regional success of the non-dramatic author Rumena Bužarovska 
– a feminist, short prose writer – representing Americanized Macedonian feminism, or a 
success control policy outside the borders of the Macedonian theatrical reality in crisis). 
Institutional corruption; the change of ministers of culture every three to six months; 
permanent vice managers with limited decision powers; endless theatrical reconstructions; 
theatre without healthy cultural policy and no thoroughly implemented cultural strategies; 
artists who have been on stage for more than twenty years are treated as if they appeared 
one year ago; if you are internationally successful and you are not part of the clans – you 
are punished (they do not support your projects applied for the public calls). Do not wait 
for Godot, he is lost in Northern Macedonia or FYROM or the Republic of Macedonia (we do 
not know anymore).
Fortunately, there is the team from the Macedonian Center of ITI/PRODUKCIJA. They 
are trying, with their creative and production capacities, through the development of 
electronic publishing and video theatre production, to discover, affirm and support them 
by publishing dramatic texts written by young and older playwrights who are not part of 
the local theatre clans that hold the theatre monopoly.

347
Keywords: contemporary domestic playwrights, 2010–2021, strong female voices, local 
theatres in crisis, eroded national socio-political and cultural state of mind
Associate (visiting) professor Ivanka Apostolova is self-employed in culture as an 
anthropologist of arts, programme producer, visual dramaturg,  translator, editor, author 
and educator. She is head of the Macedonian Center of International Theatre Institute/
PRODUKCIJA and the creator of the awarded video theatre projects Destination: Skopje-
Gabrovo (2020), Dispersive Dramatics in Skopje (The Theatre in Creative Industries) (2020), 
Dispersive Dramatics: Poor Little Rich Drama in Kratovo (Drama in Movement) (2019). She 
teaches art and design history at the Faculty of Art and Design/EURM Skopje. She is the 
editor/author of the e-magazine The Theatre Times. She is the author of the e-books:  
Theatre Comics, In Search of Lost Director, Anthropology of Experience in Theatre. She is a 
member of several national and international networks: ITI, ZDUS, ICOMOS and AICA
ivankaapostolova@gmail.com

348
Theatre Control Policy or Why After Goran 
Stefanovski and Dejan Dukovski, No One 
Is Known Outside the Borders of the 
Macedonian Theatre? (2010–2021) 
Ivanka Apostolova Baskar
Introduction
To capture the dramatic situation in/of the contemporary drama theatre in Macedonia, 
I will try to draw certain characteristics of the state of the theatre by referring to 
several political and social conditions with us, that erode the spirit and matter of 
everyday life:
• hyper-corruption, local imperialism in every pore of society, political party 
terrorism, consistently poor policy of artificial status quo in transition, a deeply 
corrupted legal system and captive state, education in a bitter crisis, tortured 
and abused culture, rotten health, violent stoning with regular changes to the 
constitutional name, crime-local feudal capitalism combined with laziness, brutal 
opportunism, and overnight constructed professional identities; constant and 
accelerated economic brain drain, radical nepotism, elephant valley in every 
institutional sector; treating the public budget and public institutions as if they 
were the private property of several government figures in managerial positions; 
• corrupted and irrelevant mainstream media working for the interests of the 
political party opposition and position – through a low level of editorial ethics and 
extremely poor quality media programme; we are a country burdened by daily 
financial and institutional scandals and social damages for which no one takes the 
responsibility – nor are they punished for the damage they inflict;
• the local Don Quixote – the Macedonian Center ITI/PRODUKCIJA, through 
which we promote domestic contemporary plays as literary works; Macedonian 
playwrights who are not part of the establishment; dramatists, who are 
deliberately not staged in theatres, with the exception of the incidental (sudden) 
goodwill of a particular theatrical institution – which usually does not know how 
to carry out successful local and international promotional strategies afterwards.

349
The Topics about Which Local Playwrights Are Writing 
We are a country where cultural and natural heritage are hypocritically glorified, 
while 80% of our cultural heritage is neglected, and nature, with its ecosystem of soil, 
flora, fauna and minerals, is brutally exploited and smuggled on the grey market.
In my country, every public-institutional pore of society is totally controlled by the 
political party in power The party employs you, controls your existential destiny, 
traces your future and controls your happiness by taking an illegal percentage of your 
earnings and profits. The party owns you to retaliate with an uncritical – amputated 
vote in the election – in fact, these are the topics and conditions that are written about 
in the contemporary dramatic texts in our country; or it is not written, and it is kept 
silent. These are the topics that are talked about at home and on social networks but 
even now, more courageously and openly, before the local elections, which follows in 
October 2021. At the same time, these are the conditions that paralyse contemporary 
theatre in our country.
Let me share an introductory dramatic-theatrical mapping: We are a country with 
fifteen national theatres and one opera and ballet. We do not have city theatres and 
private theatres with their own workspace and independent programmes. We have 
several independent troupes tracing the independent drama scene on their muscles 
and are without their own space and budget. They work on the premises of MKC 
Skopje, SKC Jadro, SKC Dunja and the Center for Contemporary Culture – Kino Kultura 
– which was closed at the beginning of 2021.
Due to the distrust of local municipalities due to corruption and disastrous local 
ethnicised policy of divisions and rural fundamentalism (not agricultural), due to the 
fragile cultural policy which, if necessary and ad hoc, tightens the criteria for applying 
for projects in order to give up and not apply – or if they (the Ministry of Culture) 
supports you with a project – then the money will not be paid, or they will pay you off 
with a radical delay when the debts to your co-workers and the executor are already 
hanging on your door.
It does not matter who is in power. The pernicious crime policy of the mafia and 
terrorists in the ranks of parliamentarians pursue their own agenda of violating all 
conceivable and unimaginable ethical rules and legal laws.
It does not matter who is in power, but when he/she is in power, leading politicians 
choose several artists who, for justified and unjustified reasons, as well as personal 
and professional achievements/interests, favour and distinguish them as a kind of 
cultural elite, at the level of justifiably unjustified genius and exceptionalism. This is 
how the local syndrome arises – the syndrome of nothing before me and after me, a 

350 flood. Either some get everything and others little or nothing, or the privileged are 
simply irreplaceable. And let us not overcome such cultural non-politics.
Artists and cultural workers do not trust the implementation of decentralisation 
of culture by reforming most national theatres into city theatres due to the above 
conditions or the fear that any theatre may be closed overnight if it is not in the 
personal-profit interest of the “local sheriff” – the mayor.
It becomes clear that the spectacular, sensational drama is happening on the 
political scene and not in official theatres and independent stages/scenes. Hence the 
employment in the theatres is carried out through party merits or for those close 
to the theatre clans who manage to establish an opportunistic relationship with the 
government and the oppositions just to maintain themselves in the theatre.
The negative selection, culmination and reign of the mediocre, local antagonism and 
silence as well as tolerating inaccuracies, for fear of being fired and fear of losing the 
basic pleasant life comfort of self-deception and posing quasi-success on social media.
So we live in an existential theatre of constant absurdity and meaninglessness 
and hopelessness in which drug dealers and sociopaths reign, passive second and 
third echelons in the party; protected by police full of petty criminals, thieves and 
perpetrators of domestic violence who abuse their position of responsibility and 
power. Crime-Grotesque and Drug-Caricatures, media copycat status, have become 
criteria for quasi-value and pseudo-success in our society of acting and self-
deception. A society stuck in eternal infantilism without a sense of self-initiative, self-
responsibility and self-awareness. A condition that distorts our perception of having 
the consistency and capacity to notice both the positive and authentic motifs in the 
culture and art of home theatre that fortunately happens.
Theatres and theatre festivals belong to several clans that own the rights to production, 
good budget, guest appearances and awards at domestic festivals such as – service for 
service, interest for interest – money. No one moves from their strange comfort zone 
in the direction of artistic progress once they are employed in a national institution.
The Specific State of the Vicious Circle, for All Possible Excuses
Due to the institutional political party policy in theatres and academies, which mostly 
seeks refuge in world classical and modern classical dramatic texts and authors 
in order not to provoke the contemporary local establishment or seeks refuge in 
theatrical adaptations of well-known film scripts and film hits without developing 
solid and fresh directorial concepts and interpretations.

351 We have no continuity of visibility of new generations of playwrights, their ups and 
downs, themes and stylistic approaches, dramatic reflections, structural experiments, 
and methodology of character building. Their capacity for staging, for national, 
regional or international recognition. In theatres, someone constantly sends dramatic 
texts that no one or rarely anyone reads. Talented children/young people, if they do 
not have a clan backing them – no one supports them until they begin to chart their 
own path of visibility thanks to the visibility opportunities offered by the internet and 
social networks or they are reoriented in another professional direction.
If authors are not internationally visible like the late Goran Stefanovski and Dejan 
Dukovski, partly like Jordan Plevnesh and Venko Andonovski, it does not mean they 
do not exist.
Today in our theatre community, too much is written about the plays of Goran 
Stefanovski and Dejan Dukovski, as well as the classical Macedonian drama period 
before the year 2010. But we forget about solving and systematising the problem 
of visibility and establishing contemporary playwrights through the introduction 
of new creative subjects at the drama academies, cooperation with various visiting 
professors – foreign colleagues and domestic colleagues with excellent international 
achievements. Regular public drama readings and critical-analytical-theoretical 
discussions about new names – topics and directions, innovations and novelties in 
a local dramatic context compared to international trends then and now. We lack 
much more than courage and obedience. We lack the sensibility of directors to set 
the contemporary domestic authors in joint collaboration with them. We lack the 
development and support of promotional programmes for the international relevance 
of contemporary drama in our country through professional magazines, bilateral, 
trilateral collaborations and collaborative educational and production-oriented co-
productions.
Macedonian Contemporary Drama
Here, I will list authors from mixed generations with different publishing and staging 
intensities like – Jugoslav Petrovski, Trajce Kacarov, Katerina Momeva, Blagica 
Sekulovska, Gorjan Milosevski, Srdjan Janacievic, Saso Dimovski, Ivana Nelkovska, 
Igor Pop Trajkov, Mia Efremova, Mia Nikoloska, Lidija Mitoska Gjorgjievska, Mia  
Nikolovska, Mia Efremova, Mitko Bojadziski, Viktorija Rangelova Petrovska. There 
are also those, who in 2020/2021 published their first or second plays, such as Ana 
Stojanoska, Goce Ristovski, Maja Stevanovikj, Gabriela Stojanoska-Stanojevska and 
many others who joined the trend of ad hoc writing and publishing dramatic texts, 
especially in the years of COVID-19 when theatrical production on stage died out.

352 In general, the contemporary Macedonian theatre is classical and conservative, 
with the exception of guest directors invited to work in our theatres, like Igor 
Vuk Torbica, Marjan Necak, Andraz Urban, Andriy Zoldak, Alexander Morfov, and 
domestic directors such as Dejan Projkovski, Ivan Popovski, Aleksandar Popovski, 
Vladimir Milcin, Ljupco Georgievski, Martin Kocovski and others trying to flirt with 
postdramatic theatre. Macedonian theatres, viewed from a distance – act as one and 
the same identical theatre with copy-paste programme logic and a copycat repertoire 
mentality. Nobody makes a work of art from a theatre programme. The managers are 
eternal deputy managers stuck in self-censorship, and every three to six months, they 
are replaced with a new temporary deputy director/manager.
The Selection of the Most Interesting Playwrights
The following contemporary domestic playwrights are the most interesting for me. 
Jugoslav Petrovski, who, in the spirit of Antonin Artaud, Eugenio Barba and Richard 
Schechner, writes about rituals, archaic theatre, exploring the capacities of the 
barbaric anthropological ethos in the theatre, exploring the dark side of fairy tales, 
folklore, myths, connecting the demon(s) of the present times with the demons of the 
primordial, ancient, pre-civilisation times. His female characters are always sacrificed 
to the Sun. In the 1990s, the Orthodox Church in Macedonia anathematised Jugoslav 
Petrovski for writing and staging the play Gospel of Judas in the National Theatre 
Anton Panov – Strumitca in 1993.
In the spirit of the poet Svetlana Hristova-Jocic and the archaic opus of the visual 
artist Aneta Svetieva (who creates ethnological sculptures – chimaeras with the body 
of a female swimmer and a crocodile), Blagica Sekulovska writes plays for the teenage 
woman, the pregnant woman, mother(s), the divorcee, the widow, the prostitute, the 
yoga teacher , betrayed women, cheated women and abandoned women in the context 
of this patriarchal society in which the woman is still polarised into a saint or a whore.
Mitko Bojadziski is an extraordinary and intelligent humorist. He creates contemporary 
political and social comedies inspired by local political banality . He makes the audience 
laugh in a lucid and witty way, at the expense of its local stereotypes and existential 
sadomasochism, borrowing from the matrices of Stale Popov but building a modern 
cynical à la Strumitca’s Itar Pejo and Nasreddin Hodja. Tired of corruption and lies, 
Macedonians love comedies and catharsis through popular humour and laughter.
Eva Kamcevska turns the local reality into a grotesque caricature. She ironises the 
pressure on a woman or her biological clock, called the deadline for the possibility 
of having a child, making the surreal turning into a biological clock – as a surreal 
lover. The irony of getting married and being married, she ironises by turning the 

353 godmother into a mythical cow – the twin of the Minotaur from Crete. Eva’s play A 
Wedding to Remember was selected for the programme of the 2021 edition of the 
International Theatre Festival Analogio in Athens, Greece.
Mia Efremova is a productive and talented author. Dramatically, she is self-taught 
and manifests strong poetics of a woman shaman – a woman as meta medium which 
draws amazing contexts from TV, film, theatre, internet and social networks and from 
the everyday life of her peers into her plays. She writes about filmed and unreal youth, 
conflicts with men, all men without a penny who live off the account of a woman with 
a bank card. (Her plays: Rosebud, Demigods, Big Deal, etc.). Mia Efremova was noticed 
by Simon James Collier from the British audio drama platform www.evcol.com.
Mia Nikoloska creates the drama of smell, odour and stench. She places her stories 
in current and futuristic contexts in which the characters determine their relations 
according to the smell of their body – she builds characters who are disgusted by love, 
touch, tenderness and intimacy – stuck in the de-humanism of progress and the dead-
end of life. Her play Hunger Artist (an adaptation of the short story of the same name 
by Franz Kafka) was selected for the 2021 edition of the Contemporary Performing 
Drama Festival in Incheon, South Korea.
One of the most successful regional authors translated into several foreign languages 
and staged on three stages at the Dramski Theatre in Skopje, SNT Drama Ljubljana and 
the Yugoslav Drama Theatre in Belgrade is Rumena Bužarovska and her short stories 
entitled My Man. The Balkan region writes and promotes Rumena very zealously, 
while I shall focus on her writing style and structure to see what made her a hit not 
only in the world of literature but also in film and theatre. She writes directly, briefly, 
clearly, visually, with strict focus, precisely, accurately-explicitly, from the perspective 
of several female characters/prototypes in a specifically subordinate position in 
marriage, at work and in society. The stories are ready-made narrative material for 
great female characters and a good movie or play, with a striking beginning and ending 
– and an unpretentious narrative in which every woman in the world can be found.
Rumena Bužarovska has the solid support of the literary promotion networks and 
channels, which are very strong and fused in the Balkans and in the former Yugoslav 
territories. It makes her independent of the success of theatrical tactics and strategies 
of success. 
Mia Nikoloska, Mia Efremova, Vasil Mihail, Sasho Blazeski, Eva Kamcevska, Katerina 
Momeva, Jugoslav Petrovski and other talented relevant authors with a great sense 
of drama. Gradually they are gaining visibility thanks to their talent, great knowledge 
of the English language, and our promotional approach and connections with Europe 
and the world – like international festivals, networks for playwrights, audio drama 

354 platforms, theatre researchers from abroad interested in the state of contemporary 
Macedonian drama and theatre. It is very important that you do not take away 
their copyrights. And it is very important that the agreements are not disgustingly 
exclusive and exploitative – the destruction of authorship. The rest is a matter of their 
individual luck, perseverance and personal and professional dramatic development, 
at all costs of the original vocation inside them.
To summarise, most domestic authors refer to local topics, with the exception of the 
younger generation writers, who are open to all narrative influences available via the 
internet. Domestic playwrights often turn to writing prose and poetry to articulate 
their drive and writing angles. They are synthesised in literary circles and movements 
because the theatre ignores them. The structure of the dramatic texts they create is 
very open and looks like dialogue lists, more precisely, like a movie script, for practical 
reasons to make it easier to get into the film community: contemporary film in 
Macedonia, unlike the crisis in theatre, is experiencing a slight renaissance.
In Macedonia or FYROM or North Macedonia, the most interesting people are outside 
the local media, political and theatre mainstream – the local mainstream saturates 
with boring “stars” of the negative selection – and the rising female dramatic voices 
in contemporary drama in Macedonia. They break up and conquer the readers, but 
only we know that. The local mainstream media and pseudo establishment practically 
ignore them!

355
Literature
Apostolova, Ivanka, ed. Poor Little Rich Drama (ePlays). Macedonian Center ITI/
PRODUKCIJA, 2018.
—. Antropologija gledaliških izkušenj. Macedonian Center ITI/PRODUKCIJA, 2019.
Buzarovska, Rumena. Mojot maz (6th edition). Ili Ili Skopje, 2020.
Dimoski, Sasho. Nie, Drugite (drama). Kultura, 2015.
Efremova, Mia. Big Deal (ePlays). Macedonian Center ITI/PRODUKCIJA, 2021.
—. Demigods; Rosebud (ePlays). Macedonian Center ITI/PRODUKCIJA, 2020.
Efremova, Mia/Volt, Mia. Dramski bombi i tenzii, za scenski katarzi i eksplozii, frli go 
nagonot! (Sirov rez 2020-2014). Macedonian Center ITI/PRODUKCIJA, 2021.
Kuzelov, Nikola. EPILOG 2077 (eDrama). Macedonian Center ITI/PRODUKCIJA, 2021.
Momeva, Katerina. Drami, Maska, 2012.
Nikoloska, Mia. Umetnik vo gladuvanje (eDrama). Macedonian Center ITI/PRODUKCIJA, 
2021.
—. inQUIZition; 6th scent; Team-obile. Macedonian Center ITI/PRODUKCIJA, 2020.
Petrovski, Jugoslav. Zabraneti drami (Shalot na Saloma; Dzanki). Grafoden, 2019.
—. Koitus so gjavolot (drami). Studentski zbor, 1993.
—. Evangelie po Juda (drama). Večer, 1993.
Rakipovski, Sinan. Dechko (eDrama). Macedonian Center ITI/PRODUKCIJA, 2021.
Stojanoska, Ana. Teatar: predizvik: studii i esei. UKIM Skopje, 2018.
Stojanoska, Ana, ed. Contemporary Macedonian Drama (Petrovski, Jugoslav, author, 
Eleshnik). UKIM Skopje, 2011.

356
Nacionalna dramatika v Makedoniji od 2010 do 2020 –  obstaja ali ne obstaja, je sedaj 
vprašanje? Zakaj po jugoslovanskem, balkanskem in evropskem uspehu makedonskih 
dramatikov Gorana Stefanovskega in Dejana Dukovskega, znotraj nekdanjih jugoslovanskih 
držav in širše, nihče ne pozna nove generacije makedonskih dramatikov ... Zakaj so redko 
uprizorjena dela sodobnih domačih dramatikov? Akademska kriza in umetno povzročena 
diskontinuiteta ... Gledališki klani, politizirani mediji in lažna medijska neodvisnost 
ali spopadanje z možnostmi rednih uprizoritev in gledališke kariere. Zaposlitve prek 
političnih strank v edinih gledališčih v Makedoniji – narodnih oz. nacionalih gledališčih. Od 
Katerine Momeve, Blagice Sekulovske, Gorjana Miloševskega, Srđana Janacieviča, Sasha 
Dimovskega, Ivane Nelkovske, do Igorja Popa Trajkova, Mie Efremove, Mie Nikoloske, Lidije 
Mitoske Gjorgjioske … Spogledovanja med sodobno makedonsko literaturo in sodobno 
makedonsko dramatiko - oportunistične dramske priredbe proze in filmskih scenarijev 
(uspešne priredbe in neuspešni pristopi) ... Filmske scenarijske strukture v sodobni drami, 
avtorji igrajo na dve karti - filmsko in gledališko (festivalski vzpon nacionalnega filma - 
stagnacija nacionalne gledališke umetnosti in produkcije). Regionalni uspeh nedramske 
avtorice Rumene Bužarovske - feministke, pisateljice kratke proze (amerikanizirani 
makedonski feminizem ali uspeh zunaj meja makedonske gledališke realnosti v krizi). 
Institucionalna korupcija; ministri za kulturo, ki se menjajo vsake 3 do 6 mesecev; stalni v.d. 
direktorji z omejenimi pooblastili odločanja; neskončne gledališke rekonstrukcije; gledališče 
brez zdrave kulturne politike in brez temeljito implementiranih kulturnih strategij; umetnike, 
ki so na odru več kot 20 let, obravnavajo, kot da so se pojavili na sceni pred enim letom; če 
si mednarodno uspešen in nisi del klanov, si kaznovan (ne podprejo projektov, prijavljenih 
na javne razpise) … ne čakajte na Godota, izgubljen je v Severni Makedoniji ali BJRM/
FYROM ali Republiki Makedoniji.
Na srečo smo tu mi, ekipa iz Makedonskega centra ITI / PRODUKCIJA, ki poskušamo s svojimi 
ustvarjalnimi in produkcijskimi zmogljivostmi, z razvojem elektronskega založništva in video 
gledališke produkcije, odkrivati sodobne makedonske avtorje, jih afirmirati in podpirati z 
objavo njihovih dramskih besedil, podpirati plejado mladih in starejših dramatikov, ki niso 
del lokalnih gledaliških klanov, in niso del gledališkega monopola.
Ključne besede: sodobna domača dramatika; 2010-2021; močni ženski glasovi; lokalna 
gledališča v krizi; erodirano nacionalno družbeno-politično in kulturno stanje duha. 

357
Izredna profesorica Ivanka Apostolova je samozaposlena v kulturi kot likovna 
antropologinja, programska producentka, vizualna dramaturginja, prevajalka, urednica, 
avtorica in predavateljica. Je vodja makedonskega centra ITI/PRODUKCIJA in avtorica 
nagrajenih videogledaliških projektov (Destination: Skopje-Gabrovo, 2020; Dispersive 
Dramatics in Skopje, 2020; Dispersive Dramatics: Poor Little Rich Drama in Kratovo, 2019). 
Predava zgodovino umetnosti in oblikovanja na Fakulteti za umetnost in oblikovanje 
Evropske univerze v Skopju. Je avtorica in urednica gledališke revije The Theater Times 
ter avtorica knjig Theater Comics; In Search Of Lost Director in Antropologija izkušenj 
v gledališcu. Bila je komisarka makedonskega paviljona na Beneškem arhitekturnem 
bienalu leta 2016 in mentorica na mednarodni delavnici Intersected Witches na Praškem 
kvadrienalu (Scenofest) leta 2011. Ivanka je članica mednarodnih in nacionalnih poklicnih 
mrež: ITI, ZDUS, ICOMOS, AICA, MATA, ENICPA, FEST …  
ivankaapostolova@gmail.com