★★★★★
Lara Parmiani wrings everything she can out of experimental theatre to stage the aftermath of Bosnia’s ethnic extermination in The Flowers of Srebrenica. At Jackson’s Lane Theatre, Aidan Hehir’s novel sparks a creative performance that plots the 30th anniversary of The Srebrenica Massacre to stun audiences into a strained but contemplative silence. LegalAliens Theatre and The Sarejevo War Theatre demonstrate that they are not shy of culturally resisting the establishment, challenging the distortion of history and, most importantly, carefully drawing lines between separate atrocities across time.
The performance begins and ends with soil scattered across the stage. Representing a firm piece of earth, this soil forms a site not only for the remembrance of the dead but becomes a place of rebirth, where Bosnian heritage, trauma and solidarity, can come back to life. Aidan (Jeremiah O’Connor), the foreign Irish university lecturer attempting to find deep communion with the victims of this mass murder within these lands, slowly gets disillusioned with his research. This troubled and questionable protagonist, on his journey across Bosnia with the ex-soldier Mustafa (Edin Suljić), deals with the difficulties of relating his countries experience of oppression with those he encounters here.
Mustafa’s and Aidan’s journey does not go interrupted. A female chorus of three unnamed and elusive ghosts cut into the narrative with historical, emotive and fearfully creative interludes into the mass murder in Srebrenica. It is quickly made relevant that these three actresses come themselves from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda and Ukraine, countries that themselves have been plagued by genocide or fierce conflict across the years. Special mention must duly go to Selma Alispahić as she suppresses the audience into very tangible quiet with piercing but intimate screams. With a mere touch to Aidan’s shoulder Alisphić she provides both an intense empathy and an adamant disdain of his emotional incapacity to grasp at these events.
Each sequence of the play uses inventive stagecraft to reanimate the horrors of genocide through the stories of these women. Blending sharp choreography, physical theatre, and vivid projections, this production guides the audience through Aidan’s harrowing journey from Sarajevo to Srebrenica. The effect is both haunting and mesmerising. Most strikingly, the chorus glide glass panels across the stage, transforming them into living screens where digital projections bring the main figures of the massacre vividly to life. Both production companies appear clearly at the top of their game when it comes to translating novel adaptions into innovative spectacles upon the stage.
The Flowers of Srebrenica is currently on an international tour, making its final stop in Italy from 14-15 November.
Words by Harry Speirs
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