Coping with trauma and theater that heals

The play, for me, begins before the play itself - when you read the "Rehearsal Notes" in the program - it begins with what is not written in the play, and is the fabric of the play, because it springs from the actors' experiences.

Sarajevo War Theater, the first performance of the text "Flour in the Veins" by Igor Štiks directed by Boris Liješević - played by Admir Glamočak, Selma Alispahić, Miki Trifunov, Kaća Dorić, Izudin Bajrović and Jasenko Pašić - from the very beginning, with monastic devotion, they immediately introduce you to the center dramas. The stage is surrounded by the audience on all 4 sides, on my left behind the audience I see a stripped wall. Directly to my right is a table, part of the scenery, on which there are plates, ice cream and food. Which will be brought to another long table in the center of the stage around which there are chairs. Dinner has barely started and it all happens in one night.

Meeting, 20 years after the war. Father and mother (Miki Trifunov and Kaća Dorić) welcome their son Vladimir, daughter-in-law Helena and grandson David who went to America and return after 20 years to start life again in Sarajevo (David was actually born there). The second brother Igor will also come, invited, but unexpected - Admir Glamočak plays him so that it is clear to you from the very beginning. A man who loses his youngest brother Boris in the war and since then looks for a bullet all over the world - becomes a war reporter - whose life happens somewhere between the worlds, who doesn't even look for peace except on the front lines of fire.

Scenography - table and chairs - chairs where the heroes are sitting and chairs that are apparently empty, because those we can't see are sitting on them, those who are not alive, but are present. Perhaps first of all, this is a piece, as one of the replicas says - about skeletons in closets, about burying them, because in order for any kind of reconciliation, establishing contact - things need to be aligned, and the skeletons to be buried in peace. From the very beginning of the play, the atmosphere is tense and the viewer feels a strong pressure in the lungs - and the story begins to unravel.

"Boris was actually looking for the truth", says Admir Glamočak immediately after the performance, "and that is not easy".

Miki Trifunov as the Father - frantic at times, yet so close, who with his frenzy shows the compassion he has for his living sons and the one who is no longer, Kaća Dorić as the mother - very polite and clear in her intention not to show how much she cares. And you see it anyway. The great Selma Alispahić, who explains her Helena completely - a woman who chose between two brothers and, due to a combination of circumstances, chose the one she loves less, who provides security, and left for America, with all the hunger inside her that wants to be fed.

Izudin Bajrović as Vladimir - seemingly absent, with his own flag that America has not removed. In the end, Jasenko Pašić, who plays David in such a way that it is not seen that he is older than him - plays in such a way that the audience takes you back to your own puberty - which is painful and hypersensitive in the desire to gain independence, yet to have support. In my opinion, David is actually the only one who has the possibility to really get away with it. When the skeletons are buried, and he gives himself a chance for life - wherever it may be, in Sarajevo or Chicago, but to have a chance to take off his shirt and renew himself.

It is played the way Svetozar Cvetković says it is played in "Elijah's Chair" (directed by Liješević based on Štiks's text a few years ago in a co-production of Mess and the Yugoslav Drama Theater) - intimately, suppressing strength, letting things come together - round by round circle. That 7-year-long move continues in the piece "Flour in the Veins".

If we talk about excellent acting, we are certainly talking about the directing process - Liješević again tells a difficult story easily, thereby introducing you to a complex world - of impulses and feelings, attitudes, heritage and authenticity that seeks to be recognized. Involvement of the viewer is decisive, but very careful. That's why I consider Liješević a dangerous director. Let's go back for a moment to the beginning of this story - each of the actors, as stated in the program of the play, all the time created the context of the character they were playing. What is valuable, especially in Liješević's work, is that he makes the actors immerse themselves in their characters, which creates an experience in which you, along with the actors, immerse yourself. Like an experiment that you are a little afraid of, but have the confidence to indulge in.

Second - it is a theater that carries a secret and is not devoid of magical potential - entering another time in which, if you are open enough, change happens. The theater is like a melting pot in which everything happens in a basin (an analogy with the City - the stage is surrounded by the audience from all sides like Sarajevo by the hills), the story is therefore told spontaneously in alternating tension and wit, with two very attractive points (Liješević's) - one is certainly the kiss of Helena and Igor after 20 years, the second meeting of uncle and nephew Igor and David on the roof / on the tables is attractive as a duel and acceptance in one breath. The creation of such points in the organism of the play is a gift - they give a special pace to its breathing, and you will want to watch it again. To return to her. There is a lot of fun, as they would say in Bosnia. And even though the writer does not mention the name of the city in any place - the piece trembles from Sarajevo.

"Flour in Veins" offers catharsis - this play is a re-confrontation with trauma that fulfills its purpose. Going through the trauma again, this time deeply consciously, aims to free the restrained energy, the energy that was trapped in the trauma and for it to clear the way for the future. In Islam, the past is not perceived as something that is behind us, but as something on which we stand, "standing on the backs of our ancestors". When our energy is trapped in trauma, then we are out of alignment with our ancestors. The release of energy allows us to draw s(n)aga from our own roots. These are serious things - in "Flour in Veins" performed from beginning to end. At the end, the tables that make up one big table are scattered. At the end, you have four terrible lines that freeze the blood in the veins, and the heart sinks with sadness. While you sit in the audience (and the Sarajevo audience easily indulges and reacts first with laughter, then with tears, it simply participates) drawn into the piece - those lines free you and you leave Sartre with the feeling that you are distracted, but at peace and that your legs , maybe, they don't even touch the floor. So that everyone who participated in the creation of the play can rest in deep peace.

It is a performance that you encounter in the time after you have seen it, you encounter it in one view that is inside you, you encounter it in that porcelain service and the clinking of the escaige, while the table is being set, in another time that did last in those an hour and a half, in a different light and encounter.

In its essence, theater, even when it shakes us, aims to bring peace, says Nihad Kreševljaković, director of "Sartr" - we witnessed that.

That's why - this is a new theater - which heals and brings you back to yourself.