Dead Souls A red-and-black play

Nomination for Slavko Grum Award

Dead Souls is a powerful satire. Underneath all that talk of reconciliation and symbolic burial of the victims which is meant to unite them in death, the political games are evident. Each side wants to get as much credit as possible and retroactively multiply the number of victims. Others are involved in so called transition or financial machinations. In the midst of all this is now a family funeral business which, thanks to its whacky youngest member with grandiose ideas, lands the deal of the century. This atmosphere of family Topalović* [predlagam opombo: *from a well-known Serbian play Marathon Runners' Last Round by Dušan Kovačević] is mixed with striking mockery of public servants, achieved by the view from “above” where the dead, long since all equal and with equal rights as well as reconciliated are looking down at the action. And it is this gaze from above that pushes this cleverly written comedy into grotesque territory. Unfortunately, it seems that the dark, gallows humour fits the current political situation perfectly as some people start digging up bones and counting the dead, when they should be presenting strategies for the future.