THEATRE: FAMILY STORIES: BELGRADE

REVIEW BY SOPHIE TARR

Belgrade’s children are grappling with the fallout of a war that may or may not be over. Their playgrounds are the dilapidated apartment blocks of the city, and the game in Family Stories: Belgrade is play-normality.

In this translation of Biljana Srbljanovic’s script, four adults play children playing adults against Simone Romaniuk’s fitting scotch-tape backdrop. The result is a series of skits that mimic the ups and downs of your (almost) average dysfunctional family. What starts out as child’s play quickly becomes a haunting, almost hysterical portrait of domestic abuse and war-time hopelessness as the ‘children’ play out the lines they have learned from their parents.

Though the hammed-up acting does provide some genuine laughs, it mostly feels strained. You’re left wondering whether the actors are skilfully portraying the naivety and zeal of children or whether they are, in fact, just a little juvenile themselves.

In parts, the light-hearted treatment of some extremely heavy themes is jarring, and more than a little confusing: did we really just see a ten-year-old child rape his eleven-year-old playmate’ And if so, why are we being asked to laugh two scenes later’

It is an approach that makes Belgrade somewhat uncomfortable viewing, and makes Phaedra Nicolaidis’s tic-inflected portrayal of the traumatised Nadezda the easiest to stomach of the performances. But perhaps this is Belgrade‘s triumph: we should be shocked at the world these children and thousands of others in war-torn countries are forced to endure, and Belgrade is certainly shocking if nothing else.
 

Family Stories: Belgrade

Until November 8

SBW Stables Theatre

10 Nimrod Street, Kings Cross

Tickets: $25-$29 (pay what you can Mondays) 1300 306 776 or www.griffintheatre.com.au