Old Bridge
Bush Theatre
 

FOR a play set in Mostar in 1988 and 1992, Old Bridge has surprisingly little to say about the complex allegiances and cataclysmic politics that brought mayhem to this Balkan city at a precise point in the 20th century.

Instead, it is  a very personal story of four young people who begin the play as ardent quasi-teenagers (two are 18; two 20) and end it with lives blown apart by terrifying military action that they don’t understand, even less support.

Igor Memic tore this play, which premieres at the Bush Theatre as winner of the 2020 Papatango New Writing prize, from his very guts.

Having left Mostar in 1992 when he was only two, it is not a personal memory. Rather it is an outpouring of his cultural identity based on the accounts of relatives and friends, including his own mother.

It is about the love, hope and passions of youth thwarted by the impact of a history so convoluted that it crashes into young lives with merciless precision.

It is also a simple love story. Mili (a Catholic from Dubrovnik) falls for Mina who lives in Mostar and is technically a Muslim. Both wear their religion lightly, as young people inevitably do, Mina showing off in her gorgeous short skirt, little dolly heels and exuberant hair and Mili proudly flaunting a taut, fit body as he prepares for The Jump off Mostar Old Bridge.

Saffron Coomber and Dino Kelly are supremely touching as the romantic leads. Rosie Gray and Emilio Iannucci bring verve and humour as their friends and soul mates. But the central drama is not about character; rather it is about a conflict in the outer world, which is recounted, not explored.

This is Memic’s debut play and we might question why he found it necessary to rely on continuous direct-to-audience comment to illustrate the drama.

The narrator is Emina who, as Mina’s older self, brings the dimension of hindsight as well as different gradations of thought to what is a simple story.

Now wearing a traditional Muslim headscarf, Emina, played with assured confidence by Susan Lawson-Reynolds, becomes our confidante, telling us much we wouldn’t otherwise know, but bringing a novelistic style so we are never quite immersed in the action.

However, director Selma Dimitrijevic etches the play in our memory, moving the actors beautifully over different levels of trestle platforms and, with designer Oli Townsend, creating the mirky mist of river and mountain set against the vivid sharpness of the domestic and real.

And the violence when it erupts is boneshaking, the excellent technical effects of Aideen Malone (lighting) and Max Pappenheim (sound) totally stealing the show.

It is a truly heartfelt tale, the Old Bridge of the title referring to the wonderful 16th-century Stari Most (Old Bridge) that connects the two halves of Mostar.

The bridge stands as an essential metaphor for the play and captures something of the writer’s cultural heritage.

A promising debut that leaves glittering memories but ducks the politics of the conflict.

Ends November 20 2021. Box Office on (020) 8743-5050. bushtheatre.co.uk/whats-on.