Darkness on the Edge of Town

Well, everybody's got a secret...[Ами, всеки си има тайна …] – Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town On a peculiar winter evening, as snow tirelessly falls and besieges the inhabitants of Sarajevo under its whiteness, in a small apartment on the outskirts of the city, the cleaner Fikreta and her young assistant Betina struggle with dirt, disorder, and above all with the layers of dust of time. The experienced Fikreta, who grew up during the war, is fully dedicated to her work, as she wants to finish cleaning on time. However, Betina prefers to float among the fragments of life that flowed or were lived in the neglected dwelling. She discovers an audio diary kept by the previous resident during the siege of the city in the 1990s, recorded on cassettes with disco hits. As he recounts his daily life in this encapsulated world, where life nonetheless does not cease, past and present intertwine, and Fikreta and Betina are forced to confront their own ghosts. How do individuals and small communities survive in a severed world filled with violence; is it necessary to face the past face-to-face to rethink the present and future; how are the wounds from a brutal tearing of the thread of daily life and familiar existence, such as war, passed down between generations? These are some of the questions that the performance addresses. Dario Bevanda (born 1985 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) is one of the most promising names on the contemporary theatrical scene in the country and region. His play "Darkness on the Edge of Town" was awarded in 2023 by the international jury of the New Stages South East festival at Theater Oberhausen. Its premiere at the Ivan Vazov National Theatre is the world premiere of the text before an audience. Katrin Medler (born 1976 in Osnabrück, Germany) has been the artistic director of Theater Oberhausen since 2022. Previously, she was chief dramaturg and director at Theater Münster and director of the State Swabian Theater in Memmingen, which under her leadership was awarded the Federal Theater Award in 2019.