THE BASEMENT
By Ilir Gjocaj
This play interrogates, with love and rage, the patriarchal-heroic myths that unified a people under siege and drove them, in interpersonal ways, to betray themselves.
— Karen Malpede, Playwright, Director,
Co-founder of Theater Three Collaborative
Ilir Gjocaj examines, with quiet force and subtle poignancy, the workings of terror during the Pristina siege; a terror unleashed by the murderous rage occurring in the streets and by the cultural and personal demons of the victims themselves. It is haunting.
— Hana Pichova, Director of Slavic and European Studies,
University of North Carolina
The Basement develops during the mass expulsions of Albanians from Pristina . . . the men in the play are defenseless against the Serbian security forces bent on killing them.
— Anna Di Lellio, from the introduction to One Flew Over the Kosovo Theater: An Anthology of Contemporary Drama from Kosovo
The basement is a metaphor for the underground flow of consciousness (or more precisely, the subconscious) that stifles the life of each new generation, conditioning it to be only a shadow of its ancient forebears. —Zlatko Paković, Mediantrop
Scenes from the National Theater of Kosovo production, directed by Fadil Hysaj, music composed by Walter Baco, set design by Krste S. Dzidrov, costume design by Izet Curri, with Bislim Muçaj, Sheqerie Buçaj, Vedat Haxhiislami, Muhamed Arifi, Anisa Ismaili, Artan Geca, Shpëtim Kastrati, and Rabie Kryeziu.
About Ilir Gjocaj
Drawing by Biba Kayewich
Ilir Gjocaj is a playwright. a screenwriter for both film and television, a director, producer, dramaturg, and librettist. He has written and directed significant television documentaries, and one of his films won first prize at the Nine Eleven Prishtina Festival in 2003.
