The 2004 play Bambiland by Nobel Prize winning playwright Elfriede Jelinek was conceived originally as a furious polemic against the US invasion of Iraq, as well as the countless atrocities perpetrated against the inmates at the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
Twenty years later, the anti-war piece has been adapted by director Peter Lorenz and actor Jelena Bašić into a one-woman performance that draws on her own experiences and memories of the Bosnian war, expressing the universality and timelessness of Jelinek’s words in an emotionally thundering way.
Performed in a dark room backing onto a large wall made up of oil drum-like tin cans, Bašić storms around the stage slashing open hanging bin bags and filming herself, the audience and a small army of toy soldiers while ranting furiously. The impassioned diatribe points an angry accusatory finger at both the complicity of the Western media and the inability of people to recognise that something is real unless it has been captured on a camera.
Contrastingly, she details real moments from her own life and experiences as a refugee with a gentle and vulnerable tenderness. There is, however, an artistic experimentation to the performance that at times does detract from the message being sent. An early moment of deliberate silence stretches on more than a little too long, to the point of befuddlement rather than discomfort, and some of Bašić’s actions, especially with the toy soldiers, continue somewhat well after the point has been well made.
There is also the unavoidable reality that Jelena Bašić has quite a thick accent, which isn’t an issue until the various points where she utilises a microphone reproducing her words with heavy distortion. This choice is especially bizarre during the finale, as she rants into the mic for more than a minute while simultaneously fellating the handle of an army knife. The text may be powerful, but if the audience literally can’t make a single word out, then it doesn’t quite have the desired effect.
It’s a deeply affecting indictment of war and media bias that is as relevant today as it was a score of years ago, and the accusations flying are no less powerful to hear. But as a performance, it’s one that is bold, righteous but one that could do with some adjustments and a few rough edges shaved off before it moves beyond the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.