Directed by: Hana Milenkovska
Written by: Gorjan Miloshevski and Hana Milenkovska

Firstly, the theater show with the title What Is a Bully covers the problems related to bullying, more precisely about the violent acts in one high school. Secondly, the play shows the problem with the violence in society as well as the wrath we carry inside us causing other people’s wrath. This is actually, deeply embedded in the play content.

The writers of the play, Gorjan Miloshevski and Hana Milenkovska (the show director) bring out the themes from a perplexed chain i.e. a very long thread of relations, traumas, events, childhood bullies, present-day bullies etc. In fact, it is no longer enough and it is of no help to talk about bullies and their aggressive acts only, moreover to make a show or a film in which we see violent individuals molesting other individuals. Now we live in times when we are fully aware about the multiple layers of this problem. You must find the causes, the event and the people who turned one normal kid, an uncorrupted person into a bully. Who are the bullies of the bullies? What are the factors for aggressive behavior?

Along with the director, Hana, we analyze these problems and questions through this triangle: family, playground and school. This means that we must look for the causes in the past, in the surrounding factors, the environment: family, school and places where the young play with their companions.

The story revolves around one accident with five partakers: Vasyl, Stefan, Maria, Martin and Lucia. We see these young people living with the traumas from their past, the childhood, trapped in a circle of bullies, violent methods and corruption. We realize that nobody takes serious measures to prevent more victims of bullying; nobody takes action against this wrath, the aggression that transfers from one person to another, from one environment to another, because they have traumas or personal interests. Almost no one takes into consideration the long thread of relations, traumas, events and bullies. There is no analytical and complex approach to this issue. This is why we also see these youngsters in their apathy, disorientation and incapacity to do something in order to brake this chain. The play depicts characters i.e. people who are, unfortunately, instruments of violence that has been handed over for a very long time, from year to year, one generation to another as modus for survival, dominance and defense.

These five young people are struggling; they are at the crossroads of needs, their desires and this unbreakable circle of conflicts, events, bullies, corruption and consequences.