Do Not Get Your Acting Degree So That You Can Become Part Of The Payroll, Only To Satisfy Your Appetites

An Interview with Mr.Bajrus Mjaku – one of the most remarkable theatre character actors from Skopje, R. Macedonia.

Bajrus Mjaku was born in Kačanik, Kosovo in 1952. In the mid-1960s, he came to Skopje, R. Macedonia, and graduated from high school in Zef Luš Marku. As a high school student, he began acting in the Albanian Drama at the Minority Theatre in Skopje (ex Yugoslavia). In Pristina, he studied drama at the Higher Pedagogical School. He has been a professional actor since 1973. In 2014, he was awarded the Risto Shishkov Award for Best Actor. In 2019, Mjaku received the Vojdan Cernodrinski Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2023, he received the Order of Merit for the Republic of Macedonia. An actor with very rich theatrography.

Ivanka Apostolova Baskar: Your acting monograph entitled Wisdom and Folly, a hardcover book, 551 pages, in color and black and white – a rich edition or summary of your extraordinarily rich acting life and profession, has recently been published. How do you experience this release that sublimates your rich stage work in multiple languages: Albanian, Macedonian, the languages of ex-Yugoslavia…?

Bajrus Mjaku: The Institute of Theatre Studies at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDU) – Skopje, once consisting of Dr. Jelena Lužina, professor of the subject “Macedonian Drama and Theatre”, Ljiljana Mazova, theatre critic, and Ana Stojanoska, theatre critic, asked me for my consent and to provide materials with published criticism, regarding my artistic activity on the stage, with the idea of publishing a monograph entitled The Actor Bajrus Mjaku.

They applied to the Ministry of Culture under the Government of the Republic of Macedonia (ex FYROM), but the project was rejected by the publishing commission, under the pretext that Bajrus Mjaku was still alive and that it was not the right time for such a monograph.

Perhaps it was this nonsensical and insulting response of the commission at the Ministry of Culture that made me wonder aloud why it was necessary to die first and then evaluate whether it was worth publishing into a monograph or some kind of brochure about what I had done.

Every artist in this world should be appreciated for the work and for the works he has given to the world, to the art and its audience.

The lack of understanding of ideas on the part of responsible persons, as far as the work of the art and artists is concerned, on the part of the “commissars” of such commissions, has offended my personality, with or without intention, and it is precisely because of the rejection of this idea by the “Institute of Theatre Studies” that I have taken the trouble to put on paper a part of what has been written about my artistic life; for my achievements, for the numerous participations or representations of the theatre culture of Macedonia, and why not of the entire Albanian theatre culture, on various stages home and around the world.

Today, the second edition of the monograph is in the Albanian language, and especially the first publication of the monography Wisdom and Folly in the Macedonian language, gives me special pleasure.

IAB: Today, from the position of a retired actor, or one of the most experienced actors from Macedonia in many and various international, regional co-productions, exchanges, collaborations… at a time when the political parties in Macedonia and the institutional clans have managed to dismantle and revitalize in a loser way all the qualities and values that theatre artists once possessed at our theatre home, in our theatres, on our stage – as one of the strongest in the period of ex-Yugoslavia?  How do you experience and evaluate this reality?

BM: The dismantling, the relativization in a loser way of all the qualities and values that theatres and theatre artists once possessed, is a bow to us from the Government Hierarchy which the Ministry of Culture has slowly set back and reduced the theatres and art/culture institutions to the last “hole in the whistle”. And until the Ministry of Culture does not get the place it deserves – to be shoulder to shoulder with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of the Interior Affairs – our theatres will be tapping into the status quo. Otherwise, Poverty does its own thing; the Poor Ministry of Culture has nothing to expect from the theatres but Poor Theatres.

Photo credit: Bajrus Mjaku.

IAB: Knowing the current state of our institutions of culture in erosion, do you see a way out – a solution to these lingering problems? Problems of mismanagement, ministers changing every 3 to 6 months, the non-existent identity of an annual program, incidental staging of contemporary domestic playwrights, if you compare our theatres in Skopje and across Macedonia to the peripherals – all look the same bad copy, lukewarm directors, invisible dramaturgs treated as archivists, and mostly bloodless actors/actresses – cautious official critical thinking?  The theater here is reduced to “I give to you, you give to me.”

BM: The question arises as to why in our theatres we are increasingly served by “Comic Duo Dramas” or better said “Cheap Comedies”, of course due to insufficient funding on the part of the Ministry of Culture and the other hand the actors seem to be not ready to deal with the engaged, the current theatre in Europe today.

Following the production of Macedonian, Turkish, and Albanian theaters in Macedonia – my deep conviction is that our theatre makers love themselves much more than the essence of theaters, and this stems from the fact that they cannot carry theater in themselves, because theater is becoming and seems to be difficult for them to master.

IAB:  What is wisdom, and what is folly in the art of acting?

BM: A little bit about “Madness”:

In the course of my 45-year career in the Albanian Theatre in Skopje, from those who have turned their ineptitude into obedience and submission, I have had many incendiaries of all kinds, but this time I will be permitted to present to you only one of many:

On June 6, 1981, the secretary of the Communist Party organization in the theater called a meeting with a single item on the agenda:

“Assessment of the circumstances and assessment of the factual position of comrade Bajrush Mjaku, as well as of the moral responsibility for his actions from the position of Albanian nationalism and irredentism.”

The meeting lasted a full eight hours, with many heavy accusations. I’ve been labeled a “nationalist-irredentist-separatist.”

It happened that within the organization of the party, a council of friends was elected, with 5 members from within and as many from the committee of the city of Skopje, who together would measure my nationalism, separatism, and irredentism.

This “advice…” I have taken it upon myself to measure my nationalism, which I have never denied. I have always said that I am a nationalist, but my nationalism on stage, I have proven it through my creations.

All this happened during the period when I was preoccupied with the character of Oedipus the King by Sophocles, where I as an actor was required to answer “Oedipus’ Dilemma”, a burden that was to engulf my entire artistic being, where through the realization of this character, this play, the theatre itself would show growth, progress, for which someone, above all, the direction of the Theatre will have to provide a creative atmosphere for both the artist and the ensemble.

Is this atmosphere, these conditions, where is the ethics of the theatre and the conscience of those who prevent the artist from dealing with the most sacred thing in the world when it compels him to abandon his sacred duties and occupy himself with peripheral, unimportant things?

Don’t you think that something has been stirring in someone’s head ever since? No one feels guilty about this folly.

And now for “Wisdom”:

May 2000.

Intercult, a Stockholm-based cultural management company under the auspices of artistic director Chris Torch, realized the megaproject Hotel Europe, by author Goran Stefanovski, with the participation of artists from the Balkans, the Baltic States, and Russia. It was a well-thought-out project with a multinational and multicultural significance.

Each participating country had its own room (the theater play, which lasted only 20 minutes, was performed outside the usual theater space), and was shown six times each night. The audience “walked” through the six rooms and became familiar with the problems presented in each “room”—”room-culture“…

… The project, from May to October 2000, was presented with great success at the following festivals: Wiener Festwochen in Austria; Bonn Biennale in Germany; Festival d’Avignon in France; in Bologna in the frame of ECOC Bologna 2000; and, of course, Stockholm.

I openly say that this project was the one that, as an artist, provided me with great spiritual satisfaction and restored my hope that, as an artist, I could exist outside of the institution of national Theatre.

So the idea of independent theatre became a new obsession for me.

Photo credit: Bajrus Mjaku.

In 2001, I registered the independent production “ONE ACTOR’S THEATRE.”

My first independent projects were: The Open Couple by Dario Fo, the monodrama Diary of a Madman by Gogol, Father by Strindberg, Uncle Vanya by Chekhov, Peer Gynt by  Ibsen, Socrates’ Defence by Plato, An Enemy of the People by Ibsen.

I claim that by doing these projects, I have established myself as an accomplished actor; otherwise, my acting career would have been unfinished, and I would have ended up as an “actor who only loved himself in the theater”.

IAB: You are one of the founders of the Children’s Theater Center in Bitpazar, Skopje, a children’s and youth theater in the Albanian language. What is happening today with this project that has grown into a national institution?

BM: Yes, I was one of the founders of the Children’s Theatre Centre – Skopje, an initiative that started in 1999 as a project for refugee children from Kosovo, and later developed into an NGO that created theatrical performances in the Albanian language. We transformed the abandoned Napredok – A Cinema Hall in Skopje, which then had a negative reputation, into a contemporary theater with a black box stage and a customizable amphitheater. This space has become a hub for creativity, education, and cultural inclusion.

In its most successful years, the Children’s Theatre Centre staged over 100 performances annually and attracted more than 20,000 young spectators, not only from Skopje but also from many Albanian speaking communities across the country.

The center has become a symbol of cultural emancipation and an example of how a civic initiative can grow into an engine of social change.

In 2019, the Macedonian Government recognized the importance of this project and made a decision to institutionalize it as a National Institution – Albanian Theatre for Children and Youth. This step was supposed to mark a new era for the theater, with a drastic increase in the number of plays and audiences. However, due to administrative and political obstacles, as well as unresolved property and legal issues, the institution faces serious challenges, which today threaten its functioning.

IAB: Baјrush, please share your retrospective sublimated vivid-dissection of past experiences – with which theatre directors (from the 70a, 80s, 90s, 2000s …) is it memorable to collaborate, and who has managed to activate the hidden layers of acting in you?

BM: In the 1980s, a tandem was formed between the Albanian drama of the Theatre of Nationalities and the Macedonian director Vladimir Milchin, an unprecedented jealousy emerged in theater and festival circles. Jealousy, that brought us only success.

In the 1990s, a new experience with the very attractive Croatian director Branko Brezovec was born, as well as the beginning of a collaboration with the young and inventive Albanian-Macedonian director Dritero Casapi (currently works in Sweden).

In 2000, a new experience with Macedonian director Ivan Popovski (works on relation between Russia-Balkans), and later a new chemistry was born between “One Actor’s Theatre” and the great Macedonian director Slobodan Unkovski, to continue with the multidimensional Bosnian director Dino Mustafić.

From 2010 onwards, my collaboration with the Croatian director of European proportions, Oliver Frljić (currently works in Germany), remains unforgettable, and it is worth mentioning my collaboration with the Macedonian director Martin Kočovski (currently works in Bulgaria).

I should note the fact that it was working with these directors that kept me constantly in the spotlight of theater lovers and, of course, theater critics.

IAB: Finally, kept today, now, and here – what do you enjoy most and what do you miss the most, as a retired actor, but who is still active in your own theatrical and human way?

BM: I miss the STAGE-THEATRE, I consider myself to be one of those few actors who still carry the Theatre in them (Theatre in myself), but on the other hand I am amazed at the young generation of actors (with some exceptions) who have a basic desire – how to get an acting degree so that they can then become part of the payroll in one of the national Theatres and thus satisfy only their own appetites.

So, I wish the young actors a long life on stage and not to forget: TO CARRY THE THEATER WITHIN THEM, AND NOT TO LOVE THEMSELVES IN THE THEATER.

IAB: Thank you very much, dear Mr. Bajrus Mjaku.

Skopje, 2025