NOTES FOR READING RULE OF THE THUMB
A FAIRY TALE
MONIKA
Ana
Lift that thumb
And stop someone normal for a change
And don’t stop
Unmarried
Unemployed
Homeless
Rule of the Thumb is a modern road fairy tale. The episodic structure of a journey is characteristic of many fairy tales. Such a journey, on which protagonists encounter different characters – i.e. witch, prince, hunter, wolf, monster, or shade from the world of the dead, in this case takes place on a Serbian highway. In a fairy tale, each episode, encounter, obstacle is a step in maturing, a lesson, or a rite of passage from one social, physical, or spiritual form of existence to another. Ana and Monika embark on their journey to take part in a hitchhiking contest taking them from the north of Europe to its south. Their rite of passage is a confrontation with the world which they live in, its dividedness, its cruel dialectics which become obvious on the road – they face eviction, unemployment, deterioration of universal healthcare and industry in a typical society on the periphery of capitalism.
THREE JOURNEYS
Journey occurs in the play in three forms. As a pastime, an escape from daily routine and a way to have valuable new experiences through encountering unknown people and places – this is the way Ana and Monika start their journey. Another type of journey is moving due to inertia, comparable to a hamster running in the wheel, travelling as an illusion of change and moving to mask and anesthetise the unbearable stasis, or to put it in traffic terminology – congestion. This is the manner in which the characters that the hitchhikers meet travel. The third type of journey which occurs in the end, is existential journey, a long-lasting and painstaking escape, the journey of migrants from south to north, from east to west. All three types of journey are components of the dialectics of the world we live in. Moreover, in order for someone to be a tourist, someone must run or walk in place, while someone else must be in flight.
THREE THUMBS
ANA
I always wanted
To ride in a police car
Without a particular reason, I think
I’m not much of a rebel
But I always found it attractive
To be in danger
And yet to know that I’m actually not
The climax of the play is the “impossible” encounter of two thumbs, which ends up in a worker’s murder. The first thumb is the stuck out thumb of a hitchhiker. The second is literally discarded, cut away, as in the famous case from 2009, when Zoran Bulatović, a textile worker of the “Raška” factory from Novi Pazar cut out his thumb during a strike. However, the third, maybe the most important thumb of today’s world is also worthy of consideration – the like symbol of Facebook. This ever-present thumb that we “stick out unsparingly, without hesitation, whenever and wherever we can…”, apart from constituting a powerful shackle of modern digital slavery – where each conscious and unconscious like we give is sold at some new slave markets – is also the symbol of new alienation and “hygienic” detachment of modern sociality, participation and, first and foremost, politicality, from bodily contact and presence. This is perhaps why the encounter of Ana and Monika with the people they stop by sticking out their biological rather than digital thumb, is so exciting, exotic and fun, and finally so traumatic and devastating.
MONIKA
CAN THIS FINALLY STOP
CAN’T SOMEONE SIMPLY
FUCKING TAKE US IN FOR A RIDE
WITHOUT DETOURS
WITHOUT PROBLEMS
JUST TAKE US DOWN THIS ROAD
AND LEAVE US SOMEWHERE
WHEREVER THEY FIND FIT
IS THIS AN OPTION
WE DON’T ASK FOR MUCH
JUST A GOOD OLD
FUCKING RIDE
MAN
I think that what you want is
Too much