THE BIRDS OF SARAJEVO

Edinburgh - Fringe

THE BIRDS OF SARAJEVO
by Harris Burina

Theatre la Fenetre at Rocket @ Demarco Roxy Arthouse To 24 August 2003
10pm
Runs 1hr 25min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 22 August

Timely and forceful, but the theatrical style has been overtaken.
This isn't the first time Harris Burina's been brought to the Edinburgh Fringe as part of a Richard Demarco project. In the mid-80s he was part of Yugoslavian director Mladen Materic's production Tatoo Theatre, a theatrically explosive pursuit of a stormy marriage.

Its techniques, including sections backed (if that's not too reticent a term) by pulsingly emotional music and non-speech action that was not quite mime or physical theatre as it's known, are present still here.

What's changed, of course, are the times. This is now Serbian theatre and Burina brings the old techniques to experiences which set a loving couple's relationship against explicit political explosions.

Idealised young love,clearly about to bring a child into the world, is wrecked by war. Marya suddenly appears without her pregnant bulge - either the child's been lost in the shocks of conflict, or this is symbolic of hope gone astray.

The two are separated. Avdo, more or less willingly, is confined in a war-zone, a tight, red-lit corner. Only at the end can they begin together again, his crutches transforming into wings as they seem to fly to better times.

It could be crashingly patrronising, if it weren't created within the molten crucible of recent Balkan tragedy. In making the story both personal and representative, Burina captures the essence of humanity in individuals and gives a wider message of hope. From outside, this would be sentimental. From the inside, it appears both true and brave in its optimism.

But theatrical techniques have developed since the days of Tatoo. What then had an Iron Curtain-veiled mystery, now seems clunking and crude by comparison with the quality of movement and dance-based theatre - including East European material on show in Edinburgh in Komedia's 'Aurora Nova' season at St Stephens.

Ironically, theatrical production gives a quaintness to a piece that is so urgent in its material. For the war-zones may have shifted, but the social and personal maladies linger unhappily on.

Marya: Florence le Juez
Avdo: Harris Burina

Director: Harris Burina

2003-08-28 15:33:47