He was responsible for the production of Waiting for Godot during the siege of Sarajevo – a groundbreaking and poignant denounciation of the war that was raging around every theatre. Ramona Depares interviews Bosnian theatre and film director Haris Pasovic ahead of his visit to Malta.
Art and war – how do the two meet?
It is a difficult and unwanted meeting of the two. Art is about life and creation. War is about destruction and death.
How important is it to have artistic media like film or theatre to convey a political message about war? Do you feel that it can be more successful than traditional media, such as the news?
Art goes deeply in the core of the phenomena; it searches for meaning and truth. News media report about the current events as they happen. The two cover completely different sides of politics or war. The great artistic works about war or politics such as Homer’s Iliad; Tolstoy’s War and Peace; Klaus Mann’s Mephisto in literature; Aeschylus’s Persians; Shakespeare’s Richard III in theatre; Coppola’s Apocalypse Now; Malik’s Thin Red Line in films; Britten’s War Requiem; Monteverdi’s Songs of Love and War – to name just a few – all these take an audience to the journey and provide for them an experience about war and politics that is not possible to get from the news.
What was the experience of producing Waiting for Godot as the siege of Sarajevo raged around you like?
Producing Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo during the siege was a very special experience. Susan Sontag, one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century, joined the Sarajevo artists during the worst of the times in the city where people were killed and injured every day; where there was no food, water, electricity, heating, telephone lines, transportation… Europe, the US and the rest of the world let this hell happen and the people of Sarajevo waited for help.
As in the play, where Godot keeps promising to come and never shows up, in the real life and death of Sarajevo, the help by Europe and US was being promised constantly and was not coming
Beckett’s play was so urgent. It was, perhaps, the most urgent performing of this play ever. As in the play, where Godot keeps promising to come and never shows up, in the real life and death of Sarajevo, the help by Europe and the US was being promised constantly and was not coming.
How did the collaboration with Susan Sontag come about?
Susan came to Sarajevo because of her son David Rieff, a writer who reported from Sarajevo for the American media. He told her about the plight of the city. After her first visit she kept coming many times. She volunteered to help and we agreed quickly on her directing Waiting for Godot.
Do you believe endeavours such as yours helped take the message of what was happening to Sarajevo to the world?
Perhaps a little bit. During the war, the most important were the Western journalists, especially the American ones, who kept reporting fiercely, risking their lives.
How did the experience change you and your art?
I wish it never happened. There is nothing good about the war. Absolutely nothing. This experience took away some of my best years, made me get old quicker, made me sad and often devastated by the horror.
In many of your productions and adaptations you seem to tackle the issue of conflict – such as your adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. What keeps you going back to the topic?
Conflicts are everywhere – starting with our families and neighbours and continuing to the conflicts of the nations and classes. We should never forget that, in each of these conflicts, there is an individual with his or her life. Each woman and each man are important. The individual fate hits us since we can identify with it. The murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, for example, disturbed the world. We do understand a conflict between her and the criminal forces she was after although we don’t live in Malta. We can identify with this brave woman who sought truth and justice.
Also, the space where your theatre productions are held invariably become an integral part of the production – such as Sarajevo itself. Do you feel that the history of a site informs your approach to the work?
I am a believer in genius loci. There is a memory of the place, which radiates a specific energy. Sarajevo is such a place. But also, when I worked in Belfast, Naples and Shanghai or in South Africa, or when I filmed in Srebrenica and Auschwitz, the energy of the place was always overwhelming.
Theatre vs film – which wins out?
I think that there is no competition between the two. We can notice that film is getting old as a medium, although it’s been around for 100 years only. I don’t think that film will survive. And theatre is a big survivor – it has survived everything – from the Inquisition to the challenge of the new media such as film, radio and television. Theatre has also survived the Internet challenge. It is so good that theatre remains. It means that human encounter remains. In theatre we are together bonded in mystery. We like it – and that’s great!
Haris Pašović will be interviewed by Immanuel Mifsud on December 4 at 6pm at Palazzo De La Salle, Republic Street, Valletta. The event, Balkan Life and Art, is organised by the Arts Council Malta, in collaboration with the Department of Theatre Studies and the School of Performing Arts at the University of Malta and forms part of the Research Seminar Series organised by the School of Performing Arts, University of Malta.
Pašović will also be giving talks as follows: Theatre Under Siege, on December 6 at 10am at GWHB1, The University of Malta; and Theatre and Leadership on December 7 at 10am at VC101, the University of Malta.