ZLATA'S DIARY. To 19 June.
Tour
ZLATA'S DIARY
by Zlata Filipovic adapted by Gerry Mulgrew
Communicado Productions Ltd Tour to 19 June 2004
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 June at Byre Theatre St Andrews
Frontline war-reports with a child's honesty, illuminated by moments of visucal intensity Zlata Filipovic was clearly a remarkable child (she went on to Oxford University, doing a further degree in Dublin, where she now lives). And she played the piano well (a skill Frances Thorburn shares in her fine performance) at 11 and 12, which is when her home town of Sarajevo was turned into a post-Yugoslavia war-zone by the kids' as sensible adults termed the war-making politicians.
Zlata's Diary was chosen for publication as an insider's account of civilian life in civil' war. Being a child's-eye account it doesn't theorise or take political sides, but recounts the impact on family, friends and neighbours. All this makes fascinating material, confirming rather than re-evaluating other such accounts.
Communicado's production faces the problem that a Diary even edited is almost certain to be untheatrical. Its material may be dramatic, but the concentration upon one voice becomes difficult when every character has to be given their own life. Characters tend to matter because of their place in the writer's life, rather than having scope to establish themselves through independent words and behaviour.
And, for all its danger and destruction, war can impose a wearing routine much of the time. Once, the production makes this vividly felt as Zlata and family suffer repeated blackouts with temporary bouts of electricity. It's easy for audience spirits to rise and be deflated with the characters as lights come on and sink into darkness. Even so, it's a necessarily speeded-up version of life.
Zlata's diary is probably best read as intended. What justifies the production apart from bringing it to the attention of those who'd never get round to obtaining a copy of the book is the way director Gerry Mulgrew's physical style sometimes illuminates, rather than describes, the experience .
Take the bridge a river-crossing long synonymous with making connections becomes a place of threat under sniper-fire. There's a growing tension as the 10 seconds between firings is filed by slow-motion crossings. If it weren't for a final speeded jump to safety, the people crossing would be shot. People do put on such spurts under pressure.
Such moments lift a production which elsewhere commands attention for its fnely-acted material.
Zlata: Frances Thorburn
Zhika: Allan Tall
Nedo: James Mackenzie
Boda: Estrid Barton
Alica: Gerda Stevenson
Bojana: Irene Allan
Malik: Stewart Ennis
Director: Gerry Mulgrew
Designer: Evelyn Barbour
Lighting: Jeanine Davies
Composer: Allan Tall
2004-06-08 17:54:10