A historic house in Serbia's capital hangs on with intimate theatrical productions

BELGRADE, Serbia — It may be out of place on a busy downtown street and it may be a bit run down, but this small mansion in central Belgrade is thriving.

Its walls crumbling and shutters closed, a 19th century house filled with period furniture is keeping a piece of the Serbian capital's history intact even as everything around it has transformed. The house has endured on one of the city's main thoroughfares, turning into a theater named Takovska17.

Built in 1894 by a prominent Belgrade family, the house at 17 Takovska street is listed as a protected heritage site. Located across the street from the headquarters of Serbian public broadcaster RTS, cars and trolley buses rumble by constantly.

Step indoors and it could as easily be a winter afternoon in 1926. Several local theater troupes have made Takovska17 their home, staging plays from the early 20th century in front of audiences of just a few dozen people.

''This house has become a true little theater with its own repertoire,'' said Isidora Ristic, who is acting in a murder mystery with the Artisti amateur troupe. ''It's become a character in our plays.''

Tamara Masic, an architect and a member of the troupe, said she is happy to see that the old house has survived in its original form.

The actors, she said, ''have had the honor to breath a new life into this object and give it a new glow.''

Inside, colors on the walls have faded with age and many decorations are hardly visible. Wooden floor boards bear the deep marks of more than a century of use, much of its decor dating back to the early 20th century.

The house ''really is like a museum,'' Masic said.

Elsewhere in Belgrade, scores of similar houses have been torn down by investors, wiping out entire residential neighborhoods and replacing them with multistorey buildings.