Sarajevo brings reality of war to local stages

TALI FEINBERG

Ntuli wrote the script of the acclaimed theatrical production Sarajevo that is to be performed in Cape Town.

“One of the first encounters she remembers was with children playing on an incinerated car with a backdrop of buildings shredded with bullet holes,” says producer Samuel Hyde. “Her experience as a naive child is a haunting reminder of her responsibility to break through the global apathy we feel about war.”

Her script is set in Bosnia in 1992. Mirela, a Bosnian Muslim, and Aleksander, a Bosnian Serb, are due to be married. Slobo, their childhood friend, will be the best man. But when civil war erupts, the lovers are thrust onto opposite sides of a bloody conflict. The story is told through the lens of an ambitious South African photo journalist, Peter, who infiltrates their lives so deeply that he is no longer merely a voyeur. “This is a story known to people all over the world who are torn apart because of race, religion, and the media that uses war as its fodder,” says Hyde.

The cast is made up of professional actors who all studied the craft of performing art at tertiary level. Both Hyde and Ntuli are Jewish, and attended King David schools. Ntuli is also the director and an actress in the show. Hyde is a composer and actor along with being the producer.

Hyde says that the response to the show, which has toured locally and internationally, is summed up best by a review that said, “Extraordinary, riveting and unsettling. Spellbound by a cast that transformed the stage into a war zone which wrapped around us and pulled us into the frenzied fray … It’s such a necessary piece of theatre, and so superbly performed, that it remained within long after the lights had faded. A sobering and an utterly terrifying wake-up call.”

Hyde says the show is relevant today: “Never again!” has become a slogan which has echoed through the world after the horrors of the Holocaust, yet more than seven decades later, these human atrocities are still taking place all around us. War, death, and suffering are universal experiences that transcend borders, walls, and cultures.

“Theatre is able to speak beyond the limitations of media screens and print. Sarajevo epitomises the importance of compassion, forgiveness, and love in a world that is submerged in fear, pain, and discrimination. This story needs to touch the heart of the enemy, and remind it that the man we kill is our brother, the women we rape is our mother, and the children we maim are the future of humanity,” he adds.

As a producer, Hyde found it challenging to find funding for a piece that tackles difficult topics such as toxic masculinity, rape, war, and violence. “People enjoy theatre as a form of escapism, especially in South Africa, so it’s difficult to find funders. It takes courage to align with the reality of the world.”

The most rewarding aspect was watching those who have lived through various conflicts or traumas engage with the piece. “We have had audience members from Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Syria, Iraq, Holocaust survivors and many others.”

Sarajevo is dedicated to the late Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob, who spent two years in Sarajevo during the war as a member of the United Nations Protection Force. Her responsibilities included assisting victims of ethnic cleansing, and negotiating the release of hundreds of prisoners of war.

The show has toured Canada and Austria, and plans to travel to Rwanda, Poland, and Israel next year.

• Sarajevo will be performed at Limmud in Cape Town this weekend, and will be shown at The Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre as part of the Remembering Srebrenica Memorial at the end of the month.