"Anatolia Speaks"

As I said, my creativity group and I went to the Fringe Festival on Sunday.  We saw some entertaining shows and one was terrific.  It was called "Anatolia Speaks" and was about a woman who had come to Canada as a refugee from Bosnia.  The actor, Candace Fiorentino, was really great, using slides to show photos of where she works in Canada -- The Real Canadian Superstore (a nice little metaphor, I think) and the people she knows and her family back in Srebrenica and the Canadian soldier she met when she was fleeing her home.  It was very moving and also funny and it made me think about a lot of important things, which is what you want theatre to do.

I remember when I had never heard of Bosnia.  It was part of the former Yugoslavia and after the second world war, Yugoslavia was a country which included Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia and Montenegro (and Macedonia, I think).  It existed under the iron fist of Joseph Tito.  People who lived in other Soviet block countries saw it as very prosperous, but I remember a Croatian woman I worked with at Taxation (before the country split apart) said that you were not able to go anywhere without your ID and that she had felt like she wanted to emigrate to Canada for a different life.  Once Tito died, the ethnic tensions between the different sections of the country erupted into a horrible war with neighbours against neighbours and entire beautiful cities destroyed in battle.  I have trouble really understanding how it could happen, how civilized people could somehow see guns and killing as a way to proceed in a modern world, especially in a place that was so beautiful and seemingly successful and sophisticated and cultured.  I remember my co-worker did say that the Serbians were "animals" and that shocked me because, in Canada, you don't often hear other people characterized in that way.  She felt no compunction in saying it and all the Canadians who were there felt decidedly uncomfortable and someone quickly changed the subject, because we really didn't know what to say.  She was a lovely woman in many ways, but certainly the ethnic animosities that caused the war were imbedded in her world view.  I remember the horror we felt here when the war was unfolding and the helplessness of the West to make the horror stop.  Westerners have so many conflicting points of view -- the idea that we know best, that democracy is the way to go, that countries have a right to self determination, that we don't want to interfere in other countries' internal affairs, that people need to find ways to compromise, that ethnic hatred is dangerous (some of our points of view are right, I think, but some -- do we know best?  These things never have simple answers -- like in eastern Ukraine -- do we really understand what is going on there?  Can we, when we are so far away in place and time?)  Anyway, Anatolia's personal story helped us focus on these bigger issues, while at the same time providing us with a window into her heart and soul.  I really found it to be excellent theatre.

The Fringe continues until September 14, so why not trek down to Granville Island and see a show?  I usually make an effort to pick shows that I think will be edifying in some way, by studying the program and looking at reviews and that sort of thing, but I think next year, I'll just choose randomly and see what we get.  Go in to a show blind and let it just happen around me!  That'll be a bit of a theatrical adventure!

The strike continues.  I'm having some dark nights of the soul worrying and wondering if we will ever be back inside the school doing what we should be doing, but we soldier on and try to keep a positive attitude on the picket line.  The ball is in the government's court now, so we are waiting to see if they can meet us halfway (at the net?  maybe we can shake hands and get a deal that satisfies both sides?  I know, it doesn't look good, but the darkest hour is just before dawn, they say.)