Critique - Mirza Skenderagic “Phantom Leg- a post-apocalyptic story” 

“This is not time as we know it... Something has happened", is the opening line of the Sarajevo War Theatre’s new play, mysteriously and symbolically titled "Phantom leg - a post-apocalyptic story". This project by the Belgian stage and visual artist Thomas Steyaert, currently based in Sarajevo, is not really  “theatre” as the local audience would know it, given that it is a play in which the lost feeling is not reached through dialogue, i.e., the text, but through exhaustive construction of theatrical images of the post-apocalyptic world, built between a man and object through a love dance, through movement and objects left as the only remaining means of communication. Although one can speak of a seemingly unfinished picture, the viewer captivated by its magic will not ask the questions normally raised by a conventional theatre, but instead will surrender to its colours, light and sound, its signs and traces, its main performer, to search together for the cause of the phantom pain of a lost world."

While in a dystopian future the only remaining human (or someone that looks like a human) is trying to build a home somewhere, in the theatrical reflection of that future, a performer is trying to create a play, to convey a message to the audience using theatrical language. These two worlds are in no way separated, nor does the theatre world have any self-referential character. In this performance the act of life and the theatrical act are united to such an extreme, like a bond between reality and dream, and the only link between them is the black sclera that covers the eyes, Thomas Steyaert as a sick human shell and Thomas Steyaert as a performer with a mask, who tries to find a connection between the past, present and future with movement instead of words. Namely, while immersing into the world of "Phantom Leg, the viewer will be aware of his or her own presence in the theatre, the audience will know that the igloo built from old computer monitors is "only" a consciously designed scenography element (the scenography is signed by Daniel Premec and Thomas Steyaert), but at the same time, will be able to submit to the idea that such a person exists in the distant future, from which a man with sclera in his eyes looks at him and  "addresses" him through movement instead of speech. Theatrical dream will act as an inevitable reality. At the same time, the author is simultaneously building a context of dystopian fiction and a new reality in which "somewhere there" "three mysterious rituals" are being performed, in which "the last remaining birds fly in the poisoned sky". That in its turns will complete the feeling of isolation and alienation, not only of the last man, but also the audience with him.

Although one cannot speak of a dramatic narrative per se, the central plot of this play is obvious, without any poetic phrases, like the central one: "Somewhere a man (or something that resembles looks a man) is trying to build a home", visually and sensibly frame our experience. Thus, in the everyday life of the main character, it will be possible to recognize the constant threat from beastly phenomena, then his confrontation with them and finally the union in a common ritual. After that the lonely man is once again alone with his "family" of mechanical toys and defunct machines and objects whose constant devoted arrangement and rearrangement helps the man save traces of memories of his past life. The title of the play tells right away the kind of story this is going to be, yet the viewer, despite the ironic tone, will get a "story", but not the one he might have hoped for. They will get a story that is a feeling, vague and irrepressible, but still stronger and truer than "spoken" one.

Therefore, anyone who focuses on "putting together" the cause-and-effect narrative structure of this play or who decides to spend time searching for the meaning they desire, will not get much in return and at best will recognize a redundant clue about, for example, the action set in The Wild West. One should surrender to this play like to a dream and not try to change its rhythm, speed up its tempo, define its colours, costumes or music, or confirm or deny the found meaning. "Phantom leg" is a play that works just like an abstract film, deviating from reality known to experience, but not reaching for a complete transformation of physical reality, yet keeping its nature in a distorted form, demanding but possible.

"Phantom leg" is a play that at first captivates with its exterior, i.e. scenography setting coloured with light, which resembles theatre woodwork with remnants of the fundus of a futuristic theme, with a leaking sewage pipe in the middle of the background. The water from the pipe the last man will use for washing in order to maintain a connection with the "old" world and physical reality. Our attention will be drawn to the musical background and the soundtrack, which from beginning to end will faithfully follow the events on the stage, every change in the atmosphere and rhythm. As the story develops from dark and menacing form to the nostalgic and soothing, two well-known songs such as "Shiny Happy People" or "Don't Worry, Be Happy" will have a double effect on the audience, at first awakening them from absolute surrender to the new world, and then, as an ironic contrast, reminding people of happiness, of the humanity to which they still belong, but they which they carelessly renounced. In the midst of frequent, and sudden changes in musical themes, over time the audience gets the impression that it is really a kind of a playlist that someone, somewhere controls, and that will unknowingly interrupt the viewers in the process of imagination.

Furthermore, in such an abstractly established concept, one can hardly talk about acting as a process, but one can talk about the embodiment of phenomena, sometimes mysterious, sometimes bizarre. Thanks to the diverse cast consisting of Snežana Bogićević, Ajra Branković, Ema Osmanović, Nedim Džinović, Amar Selimović and Hana Zrno, as well as Irma Saje's costumes, the audience gets that final piece of the puzzle of the "Phantom Leg" universe, with its secret passages to the worlds of, for example, "Ghostbusters" and David Lynch's films. What, in the end, determines and defines this play, and what sets it apart from, for example, plays by Aleš Kurt, despite their almost similar view of theatre, is the movement, the dominance of which is certainly expected given Steyaert’s background as a choreographer and a performer.

Nevertheless, choreography in this piece pushes the boundaries when it comes to Steyaert's authorial poetics, because, in addition to developing another relationship in it, the one with inanimate objects such as a broken robot construction, he resolutely engages in the complete construction of the character exclusively through movement, in the manner of, for example, the great Bob Wilson. With the detailed design of each movement, with the division into individual images of different rhythms, with their own structures and development from point A to point B, without the intention to illustrate, but to deepen, Steyaert moves into the spaces of the human psyche that speech does not even know exist, because, as Wilson says: "Things happen to the body that have nothing to do with what we say." Although perhaps the repetition of the same or similar movements may act as a creative deficiency, such a process actually creates a state of captivity for the main character, who persistently tries to return his lost emotions, return his taken body, drive away the pain in his hand, the tingling in his legs, which he is forced to remember through movement.

Ultimately, "Phantom Leg" is a play that, as Bob Wilson would define it, does not draw conclusions, nor does it say what something is? Instead, it poses the question "what happened?" While somewhere a man (or something that looks like a man) is trying to build a home, an artist is trying to "build" a theatre, here and now, an absolute, pure, complete theatre.

A theatre that will someday, in the distant future, be a man's phantom leg that will hurt him, but with an answer instead of a question: "Something happened."