West Coast Ensemble’s Balkan Women Portrays Muslim Terror in Serbian Prison

By Pat McDonnell Twair

The only similarity between The Balkan Women performed by the West Coast Ensemble in Los Angeles and Euripides’ Greek tragedy, The Trojan Women, is that both groups of women are totally at the mercy of soldiers who have invaded their land.

Whereas the Trojan women, led by Queen Hecuba and Andromache, prepared themselves in ancient Troy for the inevitable choice of suicide or rape and slavery at the hands of their Greek conquerors, the Balkan women are Muslims in 1992 Bosnia whom Serb troops have taken from their homes for interrogation in a detention camp. They, too, fear rape and murder.

Each Muslim woman is brutally questioned in an effort to uncover the identity of the driver who detonated a car packed with explosives at a military fuel depot. Sixteen Serbian soldiers were burned to death in the fiery blast.

Lt. Jovan Vlaco (Michael Cervant) is particularly suspicious about Samira Jusic (Gabriella Bova), a beautiful 18-year-old who fits the description of the woman who parked the Citroen filled with TNT at the depot.

The emotions of the women are reiterated by a female chorus (Lisa Collins, Julia M. Feliz and Stephanie Zachar). The pronouncements of the Serbs are echoed by a helmeted male chorus wearing camouflage uniforms.

When Vlaco bursts into the women’s cell, the male chorus orders the Muslims to be silent.

Samira’s mother, Amina (Angela DeCicco), protectively shields her daughter from Vlaco’s grasp.

“This is Greater Serbia and you call it Southern Bosnia,” he thunders. Vlaco demands the name of whomever perpetrated the depot explosion, cursing that “Muslims lie the way some people breathe.”

He refers to the Muslim women as non-Christians.

“We are non-Christians? What a way to say you are a non, a nothing,” Samira shouts, as Vlaco departs.

Another prisoner discloses to Amina that her daughter is indeed the woman who drove the Citroen on its deadly mission.

“But she’s only a child,” Amina laments. The chorus cries: “In war, children swallow their childhood before their time.”

Vlaco again enters the women’s quarters and, with pistol drawn, twists Samira’s arm behind her and drags her from the cell. Amina throws herself upon her daughter’s tormentor, begging him to question her instead, pleading that her daughter is too ill to withstand torture.

For some reason, Vlaco releases Samira and instead marches Amina to the dreaded interrogation room. There, he orders her to disrobe.

A new commander, the dreaded Col. Banislav Herek (Anthony Connota), has just arrived from a hospital where he was operated on for shrapnel wounds.

Amina takes heart when she hears the name of Colonel Herek. She had known him when both were young; she the daughter of a farmer, he a young officer training in her village.

“This is no command for me, I am a field officer,” the colonel complains when he learns his troops are starving, raping and murdering the Muslim prisoners.

A former university professor with daughters of his own in Belgrade, the colonel wants the violence in the camp to cease, but he also must find the culprit who destroyed the depot and killed 16 men.

A Contemporary Tragedy

Playwright Jules Tasca weaves a contemporary tragedy with many plot twists and much dialogue that plumbs the dynamics of war and demonstrates that the enemies have wasted their lives generating hatred over past wrongs instead of emphasizing the humanity and culture they share.

“This land is Serbian land,” Vlaco storms. “The Muslims took it in 1389.”

“Our culture grew here since,” retorts Samira. “So war will never end? Say it, war won’t end until all Muslims are dead.”

It is Amina’s observations that strike a universal note: “We are all somebody’s daughter” or, she reprimands her daughter: “There is no principle to stand on in a nightmare.”

Commented playwright Saleem Azouka: “The West Coast Ensemble is to be congratulated for producing The Balkan Women. The civil war in the former Yugoslavia is a terrible thing happening in our era. The Ensemble picked up a script that other theaters haven’t considered because it is such a heavy subject.”

Director Les Hanson says the Ensemble has performed one-act plays by Tasca, a Pennsylvania professor who has written more than 100 plays.

“This script seemed so timely, yet we were trying to marry a contemporary situation with Greek tragedy,” he said. “It was a huge challenge for the actors to speak their lines at the same time the chorus voices their message.”

The Balkan Women is formatted on Greek tragedy; there is no happy ending. But what an emotional roller-coaster ride the audience experiences as its story unfolds.

The Balkan Women performs through Aug. 29 at the West Coast Ensemble, 522 N. La Brea, Los Angeles. For reservations, please call (323) 525-0022.

Pat McDonnell Twair is a free-lance writer based in Los Angeles.