Become a Member
Theatre

Review: 3 Winters

Haunted by the shadows of their dark past

December 11, 2014 14:13
Sophie Rundle (Lucia Kos) and Jodie McNee (Alisa Kos) in 3 Winters

By

John Nathan,

John Nathan

2 min read

Before my job as a theatre journalist, I happened to spend a week or so in Croatia as a press photographer during the war years in the 1990s. Among my strongest memories are of Paddy Ashdown striding passed shell-shocked Bosnian refugees on his way to a meeting to promote peace. But I also remember the feel of a country that, like much of the region, was in the grip of nationalism. It left a sour taste. And now even Serb or Croat football crowds seem to me to have a fervour that chills to the bone.

This National Theatre debut by UK-based Croatian writer Tena Štivicic puts much of that national character in context. Although I suspect the play would have a greater impact in Croatia's national theatre than it does at ours. It's a bit of behemoth in terms of scope and ambition. The eponymous three winters belong to the years 1945, 1990 and 2011; and the action, set in the Kos family's grand Zagreb house, lurches back and forth between all three.

The years represent three crucial moments of Croatian and European history: when the Communists replaced the Nazis at the end of the Second World War; when Yugoslavia split into its national parts and, perhaps less dramatically, when Croatia became committed to joining the EU.

These events are viewed through three generations of the mainly female Kos family whose Communist forbear Rose (Jo Herbert) took possession of the house – or one large floor of it – when its Nazi-sympathising aristocratic owners fled to South America. One of them, it emerges, has stayed behind.