Drama, whether it be good, bad or indifferent is always politically or socially relevant. Even the crudest, most basic farce or whodunit reflects and demonstrates what is generally prevalent and acceptable at the time on many levels, not least on sexism or race. Who can imagine scantily clad young ladies romping on the West End stage now as they did in the 70s and 80s? – and, don’t forget, the title of one of Agatha’s most famous plays had to be changed so as not to include a now unacceptable racially derogatory word. Who knows, if the concept of animal rights become more widespread, the title of The Mousetrap may need to be reconsidered.

On a more serious level, all the great playwrights, of all eras, have given us insights into the social and political mores of their time. Writers like Ibsen, Chekhov, Miller, Osborne, Pinter et al reveal more about how things were and what people thought than dry academic history books ever could, just as Shakespeare gives us unequalled insights into life in Elizabethan England.

Each of the five plays in One Flew Over the Kosovo Theater informs and reflects on the troubled times and break-up of the former Yugoslavia and its consequences.

Most European countries have a strong tradition in theatre and can boast a number of world class playwrights, some fledgling countries are only at the start of creating a tradition as this excellent anthology demonstrates. It has been complied by Saša Ilić and Jeton Neziraj and has a note from Ariel Dorfman and a foreword by Anna di Lellio. Four of the five plays are from the past ten years.

The Crossroads Café by Visar Krusha is set, unsurprisingly, in a café and has a rather large cast of twenty-one characters and demonstrates the influence that British comedy has had in the Balkans. Until his death, and the overthrow of Enver Hoxha, Norman Wisdom was the biggest thing since sliced bread in Albania and Krusha’s play was heavily influenced by the BBC TV sitcom ‘Allo, ‘Allo! which was avidly followed in Kosova during the occupation. It does not take much imagination to link the occupation of France during WW2 with the Balkan war(s) of the 1990’s which began in Kosovo long before the main events kicked off in the rest of the former Yugoslavia. Comedy it may be, but it reveals a lot about how people felt and behaved during the period.

As we all know, the conflict was based on and fuelled by hate and intolerance and the ethnic cleansing was almost medieval in its brutality. Both The Basement  by Ilir Gjocaj and The Finger by Doruntina Basha deal with characters who, to use that horrible euphemism, “disappear”, while the single-hander Slaying the Mosquito by Xhevdet Bajraj is about a man exiled by the war. This is reminiscent of Beckett’s Krapps’s Last Tape and is, for me, the outstanding play in the collection.

The eponymous One Flew Over the Kosova Theater by Jeton Neziraj is a broad satire, said to be based on real events. Set during the creation of the breakaway state it deals with the fledgling government’s desire for censorship and its hostile attitude to the arts. The play opens on the stage of the Kosovo National Theatre in 2008 where rehearsals for Waiting for Godot are interrupted by the arrival of the Minister of Sport who instructs the director to prepare theatrical events to celebrate the country’s independence.

While none of these plays has received extensive performance on the world stage or their writers any great recognition, I think in years to come, when more distance has been achieved, they will be acknowledged and performed not only as good and worthwhile plays but ones that have value, like Brecht for example, as historical, political and social documents.    Michael Hasted    December 2018

ONE FLEW OVER THE KOSOVA THEATER – An Anthology of Contemporary Drama from Kosovo Edited by Saša Ilić and Jeton Neziraj

Published by Egret, North Carolina USA       30^th November  2018

Paperback   302pp

£20.99  (in UK)

ISBN 9781942281047