Flowers of Srebrenica is a new work inspired by the book of the same name by Aidan Hehir. It blends physical theatre with video projection, interspersed with scenes, to craft a story about a moment in time, but also about this moment in time. The script jumps between these spaces — at times artfully, however the odd jump is clunky. Despite this occasional clunkiness in transition, the cast are uniformly exceptional to watch, supported by strong projection design and sound design to create the liminal space where the play exists.
Devised and performed by actors who themselves are displaced from places where genocide has taken place (or currently is taking place), the play confronts the “audience at home” as they call it; those of us who sit at home, watching these atrocities unfold, but then are able to switch off the news and go to sleep in our warm beds. There are several moments where the 3 women, who act as a chorus but also almost as ghosts, weaving into the space and commenting on the experiences of the “real” people, remind us that this isn’t a thing in the past….it is something that is still happening today. Indeed one of the most poignant moments includes a stream of video with the names of those killed scrolling, seemingly forever, as the women offer handfuls of dirt to audience members, and another actor openly weeps.
It was truly delightful to see work created through techniques that are not text-first; the most powerful moments of the production were those where the performers’ physicality twisted and pent up to evoke an emotion in them — truly an outside-in approach that we don’t get to see on London stages as often as we’d benefit from. The company were uniformly compelling in this regard.