On the floor, Burrnesha is just not as darkish as Stiffler. It is a truism that in a lot of Neziraj’s works, there may be at all times some half-hidden ambiguous redemption (even The Handke Project has this)—and this piece isn’t any exception. Some redeeming issue permits the “victims” of the tales (I take advantage of the time period loosely) to assert again some management.
Sose lives as a person within the Albanian mountains till Edith convinces Sose to come back to London and speak about being a sworn virgin on tv—as if she is a dwelling exhibit. Edith is oblivious to her exoticizing perspective in direction of Sose. Even worse, when Julian hears about Sose in London, he decides he should have her on his present to spice up his flagging drag profession. But as a result of Julian doesn’t suppose Sose’s story is sufficient to wow London audiences he needs Sose inform the viewers she went to jail after murdering somebody. According to Julian, “Art is the lie that saves us from reality.”
Julian’s perspective towards Sose is one among patronizing welcoming. He has all the facility, but it turns into obvious that he’s the one who’s ill-at-ease and insecure, not Sose. In affirmation of this, Julian exasperatedly tells Sose that she is the actual drag queen, not him. But Sose is just not in drag. This second within the play is very essential and seems to be the middle round which the whole lot else relies. Sose is a sworn virgin so she will survive, one thing Julian fails to grasp.
The central message—that girls who develop into sworn virgins are brave and courageous—is powerfully underlined within the play. Erson Zymberi, director of Burrnesha and inventive director of Gjilan City Theatre, instructed me that fascinated about sworn virgins stored him awake at night time. He refers particularly to at least one story he heard the place somebody was in horrible ache throughout her interval and needed to conceal her anguish from the male companions she was with. In his confession lies buried a deep understanding of what sworn virgins should undergo and what they’ve to surrender.
This contrasts with Julian’s perspective, and although he’s a fictional character, he most likely represents a response that’s generally skilled by sworn virgins. In evaluating Sose to a drag queen, Julian completely misunderstands Sose’s cultural background and the context for turning into a burrnesha. In order to clarify it to himself, he compares Sose to the closest factor from his personal Western tradition: a drag queen. Thus, Sose is othered and her expertise defined away utilizing an inaccurate Western contextualization. Sose’s story is just not a lot wrested away from her however reworked and made alien into one thing else. Neziraj admits that this concept of the West reframing and recontextualizing different cultural experiences to make issues make extra sense to them is a preoccupation in his work.
Zymberi explores how the story is instructed and mistold by way of using microphones and a TV present format. Sose and Edith face off towards one another on the mics throughout a slender stage house (reformatting Oda Theatre’s taking part in house drastically). The impact is harking back to a catwalk or a lecture house because the viewers, sitting on raised seats, may really feel they’re being referred to as upon to guage Sose. Sose is made right into a spectacle and, one may argue, is being placed on trial. Is she attention-grabbing sufficient for a Western viewers?
But for a extremely intelligent and sensible second, Zymberi turns the tables on Julian and provides him a style of what it feels wish to not be in charge of his story, the mic pointed at him demanding that he communicate as a result of the safety of his life relies on it.
At the highest half of the stage is a mirror, angled sufficient in order that solely the again backside halves of the actors’ our bodies (nearly from knees down) are mirrored. The impact is to encourage an viewers to take a look at the characters once they don’t know they’re being checked out in an act of thoughtless voyeurism. Zymberi defined that he was focused on exploring Sose’s interior and exterior lives—how she sees herself on the within and the way she is seen on the surface. It is the surface that Julian and Edith, to a sure extent, attempt to management.
The play then makes a transfer to discover the psychogeography of such areas as a result of, after all, the interior and the outer are by no means and might by no means be separate zones. Thus, the taking part in house additionally turns into Sose’s dwelling, Soho Theatre, the TV studio, and an oda e burrave—a room the place Albanian males meet. There is nowhere for any of the characters to cover. Zymberi creates a taking part in house the place every character’s psychological expertise of the opposite’s habits is clear and uncovered. This is seen in moments like when Edith kisses Sose and dares her to not really feel something or when Julian lastly understands how he has wronged Sose and travels to Albania to hunt “forgiveness.”
In whole distinction to Stiffler and Hava’s circumstances, Sose is ready to take higher management of her story in a form of ethical cleaning. When Sose forgives Julian, the mic is used as if it’s a gun inflicting Julian to suppose Sose goes to kill him—a reference to Julian’s earlier try to fabricate Sose’s life story. Instead of taking pictures Julian although, Sose goals the gun at a deer that’s supposedly behind him. But for a extremely intelligent and sensible second, Zymberi turns the tables on Julian and provides him a style of what it feels wish to not be in charge of his story, the mic pointed at him demanding that he communicate as a result of the safety of his life relies on it.
What have these performs obtained to do with gender violence within the Balkans (particularly Albania and Kosovo) and in wider international societies as an entire? Both reveals make it clear that gender violence is a societal phenomenon and use that to query who will get to inform whose story and the way. These tales have each been in a position to attain folks in numerous methods. Though vital of Kosovan society, due to its success Stiffler was invited by the nation’s Ministry of Justice to participate within the nation’s sixteen days of activism towards gender-based violence (10-25 December 2022). Neziraj shared {that a} Balkan girl from New York occurred to come back and see Burrnesha when it premiered in Prishtina. Immediately afterwards, she discovered Neziraj and Zymberi and stated that the play helped her make sense of her personal life, because it helped her to grasp that she is a Burrnesha as properly. Both these narratives have reached and touched folks in sudden methods.
Basha instructed me that her grandmother at all times warned her about males and boys when she was rising up: “Boys can hit you. Men can kill you. Police won’t care. Doctors will judge you. Judges won’t believe you. Now go out and live your life.”