Performance

Aram Tomasian (played by Ermin Bravo) has just brought his new wife Seta (Jelena Kordić) home from the station. It is 1921, in Milwaukee, in America. Seta enters Aram's home, thrilled. The two of them got to know each other as pen pals, had gotten married through an agent, and now, they meet. For the first time. Seta is a sixteen-year-old Armenian, chosen by Armenian expatriate Aram to be his wife- to have children with, build a life with, and to help him overcome the scars of the past. Aram and Seta's share a similar fate – both are survivors of the genocide in Armenia, when their entire families perished. The pain they feel, the painful silence that falls between them, that both brings them together and rifts them apart, is felt throughout the performance. In every critical moment of their relationship, the past returns to haunt them. During the very first few days together, Seta astonishes Aram with her actions, which go far beyond the many boundaries between husband and wife that are  traditional in Aram’s family. Quoting the Bible, he tries to impose on her his own principles and customs - gently, precariously, with confusion. In time, Aram comes to accept Seta, and all their differences, as well as the suffering imposed by their brutal past, are suppressed, while they eagerly and passionately await their first child. But, as the months pass, their hopes remain unrealised, and a new crisis in their relationship emerges. Seta cannot have a baby, and when Aram recedes into isolation, their love wanes, and old wounds reawaken. In the second half of the story, an orphan, Vincent (Boris Ler) enters their lives, a new hope, that will change their tragic lives for the better.

Director

Dino Mustafić was born on 6 July 1969 in Sarajevo. He is a graduate of the Department of Direction at Sarajevo's Academy of Performing Arts, and holds a second degree from the Department of General Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy. He has directed numerous productions in theatres in the country and the region: at the Zetski dom Royal Theatre in Cetinje, Split Croatian National Theatre, Istra National Theatre in Pula, Yugoslav Drama Theatre in Belgrade, Ivan pl. Zajc Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka, Zagreb Youth Theatre, Nova Gorica Slovenian National Theatre, Podgorica Montenegrin National Theatre, the Skopje Drama Theatre, Skopje Theatre of Peoples and Nations, Sarajevo’s MESS Festival, the Sarajevo National Theatre, Chamber Theatre 55 in Sarajevo, Sarajevo Youth Theatre, the  Bosnian National Theatre in Zenica and the Mostar Youth Theatre. His numerous directions include plays by Sartre (The Wall, Dirty Hands), Ionesco (Rhinoceros, Exit the King), Mrožek (Pieszo (On foot), Policja (The Police)), Molière (Tartuffe), C. Serrau (Family), Koltes (Roberto Zucco), Shakespeare (Macbeth), Wilder (The Skin off Our Teeth), Schwab (The Presidents), Bojchev (Colonel Bird, Hannibal Underground, Titanic Orchestra), Gardner (I am not Rappaport), Villqist (Helver’s Night), Loher (Adam Geist), Nick Wood (Warrior Square), Glowacki (The Fourth Sister), A. Dorfman/ T. Kushner (Widows), T. Berndhard (Before Retirement), Martin McDonagh (Cripple of Inishmaan), R. Lepage and M. Brassard (Poligraph), L. Hubner (Creeps), J.Fosse (Night Sings its Songs), the Presnjakov Brothers (Playing the Victim), E. Albee (Goat: Or, Who is Sylvia), R. Kalinoski (Beast on the Moon), P.Sal (Mortal Combine), E. Albee (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf), Tennessee Williams (Streetcar Named Desire), Ismail Kadare (The General of the Dead Army). He also directed an opera, Pietro Mascagni's Cavalaria Rusticana, as well as the operetta Europa by Nigel Osborn. His direction of the play Helver's Night has received the most awarded plays produced at the Chamber Theatre 55, having received 17 international awards and prizes. He has also directed numerous documentaries and the feature film Remake.

Dino Mustafić has been the director of the MESS International Theatre Festival since 1997.

Theatre

The Mostar Youth Theatre is, above all, a theatre of ideas. Ideas which are particularly independent of all ideology, nationalism and division of any kind. The theatre is a project that focuses on a new, open, contemporary and research-oriented art of theatre. It is a place for creative exploration, where aesthetic values are the rule to live by, preceded in significance only by ethics. This is the profile of a theatre in which, alongside attention to professionalism and success, a love that results from amateurism must also exist.

The Mostar Youth Theatre was opened on 24 February 1974 and has, since then, and despite all the problems of recent times, maintained a steady, uninterrupted course, with 134 premieres and 5000 repeat performances, as well as 1,200 other events. Its plays and shows have been attended by over 2 million viewers on four continents. The ensemble has also received significant local and international awards for their artistic achievements. Its members are also members of several international associations and networks, enabling them to maintain steady communication with theatres, theatre workers, universities, reviews and several other professionals from around the world.