The pandemic stole six months of my life on stage, but we were so overwhelmed by the cleaning, the disinfecting, the curfew, the stress, that at one point, from mere insanity, I began intensive preparations for Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape” and the problem was solved. 

I never doubted or wondered if that was the right choice, nor did I think I could be anything else. I knew as a child that I would be an actor. And I was a child actor, says Gjorgji Jolevski, one of our most prominent and most awarded actors.

In his career that last over three decades now, with series of unforgettable roles and performances, in which he has left a part of himself, Jolevski is a notion of an acting professional who works hard today. The Steriina Award at the “Steriino Pozorje” Festival in Novi Sad, Gavelina Award for Young Actor at the Gavelin Evenings Festival in Zagreb, Special Award for Innovation in the Monodrama Festival in St. Petersburg, Golden Mask for Best Actor at “Ohridsko Leto”, four awards for the best actor at the Festival “Vojdan Chernodrinski” in Prilep … are just part of the medals of our actor bard.

– The actor must play. Constantly. To go from role to role. We live in cycles of three months. On average, this is how long it takes to create a character. You start from nothing and at the premiere you play an already revived character who is completely different from the previous one. And so it goes in a circle. When I played Hamlet, I ran 10 km a day with a three-hour set of fitness exercises. Otherwise, I could not stand a show that lasts four hours. Daily diction exercises, for the speech to be flawless. Of course, reading books, listening to music and exercises for concentration for mental and spiritual stability – says Jolevski, who has been part of the acting ensemble of MNT since 1999, and started his career at the Drama Theater in Skopje.

With the song “Bitola, moj roden kraj”, he talks about the colorful childhood spent on stage

With the song “Bitola, moj roden kraj”, Jolevski sings the story of his birthplace and childhood. As a child, he was very lively, an energy that can still be seen on the theater stage today. There was no one else in his immediate family who was engaged in art, so that acting urge appeared in him by itself.

– I was born and raised in the Bitola Vlach Maalo, in the center of the city, right behind the theater. My parents still live there and every visit to Bitola takes me back to my childhood. I was a very lively child, curious, extremely active and eager to discover new things. I am the only artist in my immediate family, while I have many relatives who are artists, but I met them later, when I already started seriously planning to take up my profession. There is no “culprit” for my infection with art. It’s something I always knew I would do. It’s an urge you can’t control.

– In the first grade I immediately enrolled in the drama section and played the main role in the play “Nechistiot Tosho”. In the fourth grade I directed a play about the patron saint’s day of the school and I played in “Ajduchka Cheshma”. Already in the fifth grade, at the age of 10, I asked my father, who was a good friend of Babecot, the Macedonian acting legend, to take me to the Bitola theater to play in professional plays. My first premiere was “Macedonian Blood Wedding”. I played the child Niko, who gave water to the villagers during the harvest. Until my departure from Bitola at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje, I was a permanent member of the repertoire of the Bitola Theater, playing children for the needs of professional performances.

In the winter I learned the lines by leaning on the old K-stove in the theater

The Bitola National Theater was his second home. Whether it was a play, rehearsal or any other theatrical activity, Jolevski did not fail to watch it, even in the coldest winter days, leaning on the old K-stove in the back of the auditorium, which was regularly full. In parallel with the school, he played in the youth scene of the theater.

– I watched the first play in first grade in the old Bitola theater. A fairy tale that overwhelmed me. I think it was “Cinderella”. I remember the variety of scenes, the change of colors, the costumes, just an illusion. The smell of mastic, the decor and the magic of the auditorium itself, the red velvet, the size of the boxes from the second gallery. It was like another planet. Later I played on the youth stage in the theater, and when I did not have a play or rehearsal to perform with any of the sections, I was in the theater every night and watched the plays from the repertoire. In the winter, leaning against the old K-stove in the back, I memorized the lines of the actors who were like my saints. At the age of twelve I played my first monodrama “Sergei Yesenin”.

As an award for the first year at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts – he got a role in “Bushava azbuka”

“The decision was made when I was a child,” Jolevski said of choosing to study at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje. He took that mission seriously and after intensive preparations he entered the admission exam, so in October 1984 he officially became a student at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts.

– I prepared four monologues, a dozen songs and I was firmly determined to be accepted. I was accepted at the Faculty in a competition of sixty candidates and from October 1984 I started the preparations for my professional acting life as a student in the class of Slobodan Unkovski. Every second of studying was a joy for me. From morning till night in a space with your classmates, you create a new family with which you share emotions, passions, time, space, intimacy, knowledge. Out of twelve first-year students, only six remained. The selection was rigorous. Those of us who finished the first year, we got our first roles as an award. We joined the legendary team of “Bushava azbuka”.

– After the second year final exam, I got the first professional role in a theater play directed by Unkovski. That was the role of Pinus in “Nothing without Trifolio”, performed on July 17, 1986 at “Ohridsko Leto”, in the lobby of “St. Sophia”, where I received the first applause on the open stage and the first awards for the same role at the Gavelini Evenings festival in Zagreb and the festival “Vojdan Chernodrinski” in Prilep.

His lines from “A Weekend of Deceased Persons”, “Tattoo” are quoted to this day …

Cande in “A Weekend of Deceased Persons”, the Greek in “Tattoo” are perhaps the most memorable film roles of Jolevski, which only confirm his great acting range. He is considered an actor who studiously prepares for each role, getting lost in it, in order to capture the real essence of the character he plays.

– The film is also a great thrill. One of my biggest roles is Cande in “A Weeken of Deceased Persons”. I will remember the shooting of “Tattoo” and the role of the Greek as an incredible experience because of the shooting in the prison in Idrizovo. But the most difficult to prepare was the role in “Tajnata Kniga”, where I played a character with 12 different characters. The most entertaining was the movie “This is not an American movie”, where I played the role of Big Shadow.

– Without a specific job, the actor can get into psychosis which is not recommended. We live on the edge. We must be close to it, but we must not fall. The pandemic stole six months of my life on stage, but we were so overwhelmed by the cleaning, the disinfecting, the curfew, the stress, that at one point, from insane insanity, I began intensive preparations for Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape” and the problem was solved. If I think I do not have enough plays in the repertoire, I enter a topic and transform the idea into a play or project, which at that moment is vital to me.

Prepared by: Nikola Petrovski