Despite its humble setting, hidden away in a small, rather bare studio in Summerhall, We are Chechens! is a memorable, disturbing and deeply haunting piece of experimental theatre. The National Film School in Lodz assiduously constructs a vivid and horrifying enactment of the trials and sufferings of war torn Chechnya. The opening scenes bombard the audience with a cacophony of sounds: mournful lamentations and singing, drowned out by wild rantings and hysterical shrieking. The effect of this din was both profoundly unsettling and even a little confounding. The ravings of the individual young performers lacked coherence but scorched with emotional intensity.
Essentially experimental in style, We are Chechens! does not adhere to any obvious theatrical conventions and rather than give the audience a clear and comfortable over-arching narrative, it evokes the fear, confusion and uncertainty of the time through a series of disjointed and fragmentary vignettes.
The threat of violence, chaos and disorder was pervasively and continuously present; even in the play’s more quiet and reflective moments it was there, simmering under the surface, threatening to erupt at any moment. Shrieks of laughter collapsed seamlessly into screams of terror. Props were used effectively to facilitate this impression: liquid spilled from a shot glass raised in celebration quickly began to resemble blood stains on the stone floor and flowers from a wedding scene were left in a trampled and rotting mess for the rest of the performance. The cumulative impression was how the violence had pervaded and overthrown not only political structures of the region, but also the very hearts and minds of the inhabitants, their ability to experience joy, laughter, love. As one narrator explains; ‘In our land, no love remains, only death.’
This is a bone-chilling performance of nightmarish intensity. Not to be missed.
