Until Next Time
From the opening to the closing...
Apologies for the delay in this blogpost! It recently came to my attention that there were significant technical issues with getting this out to the entire subscriber list all at once. I am hoping that this time around, you all receive it…
Dear friends,
If you’ve been following up until now, The lead up to opening night was hectic. Tech week was successful in the end, but at the beginning of the week, Monday, none of us would have guessed as much. Arguably, even the dress rehearsal was cause for concern—after finalising lights and sound, we only began our run of the show at 9PM, ending at about midnight.
Despite the rush to finalise the set, and anxieties at a high, objectively, it was a hugely successful run-through. Apart from a few technical adjustments, all was set for opening night, and the upcoming tour week…and opening night did not disappoint. We had a sizeable and engaged crowd— and our cast felt it. For many of them, as it was their first time performing a play at the scale that we were doing, the excitement was palpable. They fed off the energy of the crowd and celebrated every passing scene.
Tour week saw a dip in the optimism and excitement of the cast, for several reasons:
Firstly, the audiences were not living up to the standard of our first night. Fewer people meant fewer laughs and active reactions, for instance. And something notable too was that the less urban the town/city, the audiences were not only smaller but also more conservative and at odds with some of the choices we’d made for the show. Casting a woman to play King Duncan, for example, was cause for concern to two elder women in the town of Jajce. They left within 20 minutes of the start of the show citing this, as well as the presence of witches, as the reason for their departure. While disheartening, it was not altogether unexpected.
The other event which marked our tour week was a national day of mourning announced early the day of our show meant to take place in Trebinje. A week before, a murder has taken place of a woman who had reported domestic abuse before the event in question—but was not heeded by the judicial system. The day of mourning called into question the appropriateness of a performance, even if the venue had insisted that we could still put on the show. Two cast members in particular felt strongly that we should not perform. Others in the cast felt that performing could actually be used as a means of addressing the situation head on, Macbeth being a play that deals so centrally with themes of violence and uneven power dynamics.
In the end, after debate with the cast, but also considering the position of YBG as a foreign entity in a specific cultural context, we chose not to perform. The confusion of the morning dissipated a bit and I believe that the day turned into rather a re-energising opportunity. The cast took time to explore the town, eat, and enjoy.
It all culminated in the capital, Sarajevo, where after a week of mixed sentiments, it registered with everyone that this was the conclusion and that, all in all, this was a show they were extremely proud of—and arguably even more importantly, a community that would remain in their hearts forever. The ups and downs of the entire process had been navigated together, and it was time to give everything to this last run. There were tears in brief pre-show speeches, and the excitement from the first night seemed to creep in again. The outcome was a hugely successful night, brilliant audience reactions, and a team and cast genuinely happy about what they’d put out into the world.
On the bus back from Sarajevo, one cast member, Nika, and I planned the cast party, wanting it all to go out with a bang and intending to extend the experience of the summer for as long as we could. We created cast superlatives with prizes for everyone (including Professors Garrod and Rice, and Heidi!) and executed a night with music, some karaoke, and reminiscing.
I am pleased to inform you all, friends and donors of this program, that the impact of this show has lasted well beyond that cast party. I’m not sure I have ever seen a cast quite so close knit as this one. It has remained the case until now and I suspect they will always be in each other’s lives in one way or another. It has been a real honour to be included in that bond.
And so too, will theatre remain important to them henceforward, I think. The show has been captured in professional photographs and a video of the first performance (though I have yet to have access to the latter). See below a selection of pictures—though I must mention a final time what the pictures don’t entirely capture: the time taken by and work of Ilija, Mustafa, Professor Garrod, Professor Rice, Heidi, our fight choreographer, Alex, our sound designer, Suka, set and prop designer, Marko, and all the crew that traveled with us, lugging our props in a van, the crew that didn’t travel with us (Ray, Bonnie, etc.), the advice of YBG alums like Peter Sutoris. Even like this, we were understaffed and people were working overtime on innumerable jobs; but what it demonstrates was simply that at its core, Macbeth in Mostar was a labour of huge love.
It is bittersweet to think that this is the last blogpost of the summer. As I sit in the airport, my flight back to the States significantly delayed, I am slightly regretting my choice to write this now—forcing myself to think back on the time spent in Mostar is not easy; parting with the city, I think I can speak for the whole team, is not easy. But, Shakespeare himself wrote: “parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow” — a promise that parting may also be considered sweet, when it anticipates the opportunity of meeting again. Whether working on Shakespeare or in an entirely different circumstance, I very much hope—no, expect—that this will be the case.
By supporting us, you have made a huge difference, so thank you.
Veronica & the Youth Bridge Global Team
