I am sitting
under the stars in a ruined fortress, part of a crowd of 400 people,
watching a performance of King Lear. In Croatian. We are on the uninhabited
island of Mali Brijuni in the northern Adriatic, the audience having
come from all over Croatia as well as other parts of former Yugoslavia.
And I'm wondering how they can endure the spectacle of violence, jealousy,
chaos and despair, all resulting from the deliberate division of a
kingdom that takes place in Scene 1. The atmosphere is alive with
the ghosts of their recent past, and at the end, there is hardly a
dry eye.
This extraordinary production
comes from an extraordinary theatre company, the Ulysses Theatre.
Just over a year old and based in Croatia, it gathers its actors and
designers, costume-makers and musicians from the whole region, including
those who had to flee to more distant countries. In the circumstances,
this is a courageous statement. I am here as a result of volunteering
to give extra coaching to the musicians, who have been brought from
Mostar in Bosnia.
The decision to place Lear
in a fortress that was built by the Austro-Hungarian Empire is inspired.
Brijuni was the summer home of the Hapsburg emperors and then of President
Tito. So the ruined fort is a perfect symbol for a centre of power
that has twice suffered the violent loss of its power. It also offers
the opportunity to set the scenes in different sites on the island.
As the audience walks from one place to the next, there is the excited
buzz of conversation as everyone discusses what they have just seen,
a big contrast to the normal passivity of an indoor theatre audience.
My admiration for the courage
of the company, as well as the spectators, to confront issues that
are still raw, increases when rehearsals start for the next production,
Euripides' Medea. The problem of revenge – whether to, when
to, how to, how not to – troubles many people here, and elsewhere.
The actress playing Medea is Mira Furlan, who had to flee during the
war and now lives in Los Angeles. "I was very well-known and because
I was performing and travelling all over former Yugoslavia, the nationalists
didn't like that. There was a media campaign against me: every newspaper
threw stones at me. I couldn't perform on stage because I'd become
a symbol – an idea - and ideas can't act on stage. People would
applaud depending on whether they liked the idea or not. And then
the death threats started. In the end, I was getting a hundred death
threats a day – I'm not exaggerating."
This is her first time back: "I was very afraid to come and I had
many doubts. But this is very important for me: I haven't spoken my
language on stage for eleven years. The play Medea is about people
not being able to transcend their hatred, which is what happened in
this country. In a good sense, you could say that this is my revenge,
through the theatre!", and she gives a deep hearty laugh.
Medea is of course an exile
too, and this aspect of her desperation is superbly illustrated by
having an actress brought in from outside the Balkans, speaking in
her own language. It drives home the experience of the foreigner in
our midst; the difficulty of connecting with, and welcoming, an exile
who doesn't speak our language. But the most imaginative stroke is
the inclusion of her folk songs which regularly punctuate the action.
One day, we are rehearsing
the music for the songs. The singer, Maria, is present but she doesn't
sing; she just sits shaking her head and mumbling that it doesn't
sound right. We all know that her story is particularly hard: her
husband is missing and she cannot go back to her native land. As the
musicians continue to struggle with the music, I gently ask her to
sing, to show them how she would like it to sound. She shakes her
head. So I take my violin and play how I imagine the music might go.
Her eyes widen with surprise and pleasure: "Yes, yes – that's
it" and I feel something has been released. In the next few days,
she gradually opens up and allows herself to sing, though in a voice
that is almost strangled.
The musicians are part of a
small ensemble called the Mostar Sinfonietta. Mostar was devastated
during the war. The famous old bridge is still a heap of rubble, perhaps
symbolising the residual tensions in the town. The ensemble has a
core of thirteen players, and was formed just after the war to provide
music education for the whole region, as well as playing concerts.
It also brings music therapy to children and the mentally disabled
who are still traumatised by the war. Mostar is virtually a divided
town, but the ensemble has always been completely inclusive, with
members from both communities; and the importance of its existence
is recognised by a charitable trust in London, Accord International,
which gives financial support and professional expertise to artistic
projects in post-war areas.
The Sinfonietta's leader is
Radmila Pesut who has two small children and who lived until only
a few weeks ago without running water. But she tells me that this
was nothing compared to how it was during the war. "I went to the
checkpoint every day for months, pleading with the soldiers to let
me cross. I wept and begged but they turned me back each time. Then
one day, I was allowed through and I managed to find my way to Vienna
where I was able to study at the Conservatoire." She, like all the
others, mostly attributes her personal survival to luck – taking
one road instead of another, small random decisions. But it's clear
that there is also enormous tenacity.
My brief is not only to help
prepare the ensemble for the theatre productions, but to coach some
chamber music. The schedule is extremely tight, but we manage to squeeze
in some hours with Schubert's Quartetsatz, plus some Scott Joplin
Rags for contrast. Their next concert in Mostar is to include Mozart's
29th Symphony, so I go through it with the leader and principal viola;
and I also give some individual violin lessons. On my last evening,
they perform the Schubert and one Joplin Rag for the theatre people
as they sit outside after supper at midnight. The actors and crew
need some respite from their constant involvement with the tragedies,
and as soon as the Schubert begins, it brings a balm of purity and
freshness into the air: there's a collective sense of relaxation,
of opening the pores to receive the music. Someone says we should
play for them every night: I say if only they knew how many hours
went into preparing this short programme.
As for providing their own
entertainment, the theatre people show how it's really done after
the last performance of Lear. First Kent, Lear and Edmundo link arms
and raise glasses and sing one song after the other, with the violinists
improvising an accompaniment. Everyone joins in, they all know the
words, and significantly, the songs come from all over former Yugoslavia.
Then a feast is set out in the open air, even though it's well after
midnight, and after we've eaten and the wine is still flowing, the
musicians set up their stands and the music begins again. Almost everyone
is still singing and playing when dawn breaks.
It will be impossible to forget
a celebration of such high spirits and harmony and cohesion, but I
think that the memory that will haunt me the most will be the walk
that I take one day with the singer Maria. As we stroll through the
fields, I tell her that my grandfather came from the Ukraine. She
tells me that all the Ukrainian women are said to be beautiful, and
that they sing all the time. Then she turns to me and begins to sing,
one woman to another. Her voice seems to come at last from a deep
place as she sings songs from the land she yearns for; a voice of
exile floating on the warm air that carries it away through the trees.