Review: The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War at Capital Fringe

Some of the best theatre presents you with an impossible choice and asks what decision you would make in each character’s place. In the case of 2000FeetUp Theatre Company’s The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War, that heartbreaking conundrum is whether to give birth to a child, conceived as the result of an act of wartime rape. It is, unfortunately, a question that gets relative short shrift in the otherwise affecting and unflinching production.

Written by Matei Visniec, Body of a Woman… drops us into a NATO convalescence home set on the shores of Lake Constance in Germany in 1994. There, we meet an American psychologist, Kate (Konstantina Mantelos), who is typing away at her typewriter, working on a Freudian analysis of the use of sexual violence as a weapon in modern ethnic conflict. It’s through Kate that we meet Dora (Anna Lytvynova), a Bosnian woman who has been brought to the facility following a gang rape in Bosnia.

Estimates of the number of women raped between 1992 and 1995 during the Bosnian War range between a staggering 12,000 and 50,000. One of the reasons this number is so mind-bogglingly high is that sexual violence in this conflict was considered “genocidal rape,” or the use of rape as a targeted weapon of ethnic cleansing rather than a byproduct of conflict. As Kate explains in clinical terms, and Dora reveals in a more personal fashion, the act is not just an attack upon the victim, but also a means of humiliating and inflicting pain upon her male relatives and her entire ethnic group.

These wartime horrors are presented by director Siavash Shabanpour in a non-linear, multimedia fashion through the use of projections and voiceovers. They’re also examined with sensitivity—the narrative dwells not on the act itself (refusing to go into details of the rape), instead focusing on the aftermath of these crimes on Dora and on the at-first aggressively cheerful American, Kate, who we come to learn has suffered her own breakdown as the psychologist for a team sent to Bosnia to excavate mass graves.

At first, Kate is cautious with Dora, assuring her, “I’m not going to force you to get better.” Their dynamic shifts, however, when Dora reveals that she’s pregnant and wants an abortion. Suddenly, in Kate’s dogged arguments for Dora to have the baby, it’s revealed just how deep her own trauma runs.

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The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War

closes July 17, 2018
Details and tickets
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Mantelos and Lytvynova deliver impassioned, versatile performances; my only quibble is that the discussions regarding Dora’s pregnancy arise rather abruptly late in the piece and are resolved relatively quickly. The conversation and emotion around the consequences of having or not having this baby is a place I would have liked to have stayed in for a while longer. It appears that the piece has been produced elsewhere in a 105-minute format; perhaps in compressing it down to the Fringe-preferred length of 75 minutes, some nuance was lost.

In addition to asking tough questions, good theatre often educates as it provokes. While The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War is difficult to watch, that makes it all the more important not to look away. It’s a powerful examination of the very worst of human behavior that also offers us the tiniest spark of hope in the darkness.

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The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War by Matei Visniec. Directed by Siavash Shabanpour. Featuring: Konstantina Mantelos and Anna Lytvynova. Set and costume designer: Siavash Shabanpour.  Sound designer: Arian Yaghmai. Video production/graphic design: KAJART. Stage manager: Parya Tahsini. Produced by 2000FeetUp Theatre Company at Capital Fringe 2018. Reviewed by John Bavoso.