An enthusiastic audience greeted the return of Equal Voices to Hamilton, their New Zealand base. Their new piece, Salonica, has been thoroughly road tested, performing through New Zealand and across Europe.

The show functions like clockwork, combining with panache live bodies of performers, live music performed and composed by Andy Duggan, expert back projections of images from the First World War and letters that write themselves across a screen at the rear of the stage. The skill with which these resources are deployed forms a showcase for the two remarkable performances at its heart.  

This is a show that moves through moments of light heartedness, even whimsy, but ends with a powerful cadenza that leaves me heart struck; at a loss for words. A Serbian soldier returns from Salonica to his homeland, “the land of eagles” over the mountains. He sinks to the floor of the stage and kisses the earth of what we would call his turangawaewae. Here Mihailo Ladevac – always performing expertly – is completely engaged. We feel his heart has been torn, his soul exposed in grief and longing. I don’t actually have a reviewer’s language that is the match of this point in the show, but I know it will live with me long. 

Ladevac is brilliantly matched by Sean Fahey, a deaf New Zealand actor. He uses NZ Sign (the third official language of New Zealand), which of course is a body-focused language, extending through the hand and the face. Like Ladevac, Fahey is constantly alive through the whole of his body. Together the two are, in part, brilliant clowns. Traces of Beckett’s tramps, of Chaplin and Buster Keaton, mark their playing together. Often their exchanges, across sign, Serbian and spoken English, are very funny. They make for a highly engaging hour in the theatre. 

This, though, is a fundamentally serious show. The commemorations and reflections on the First World War risk numbing us all as we approach the 100^th anniversary of the end of the War in November, 1918. Is there anything more to be said? Are there any stories untold? Emphatically yes. In the core narrative, Mihailo and Sean, in the present, research their ancestors. Could their grandfathers have met in Salonica in Northern Greece, a great crossroads of the war in the Mediterranean?

In the central section, the grandfathers do meet as young soldiers. They smoke cigarettes, write letters home. They don’t discuss grand policy: they simply try to get on. If these two did meet, then the show is a bromance, a wartime comedy. If they did not, a bleaker fate ensues. The show nicely balances these issues.

It’s a history play, in large part, but you cannot hear Ladevac speaking Serbian so viscerally without thinking of the fate of Serbia in the early 1990s. We witness Serbian pride and a staunch Kiwi soldier. The larger theme shows the crippling effects of the nation on its peoples and leads us to reflect on the First World War, the most wretchedly futile war of all.

This then is a rich hour in the theatre which will strike anyone who sees it. 

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Circa Theatre’s smart new foyer is matched by the smart choice of its latest offering.  

Salonica, opening at Circa Two and running until February 17, is a production with a difference – created with a particular group in mind, signalled by the large circle of prospective audience in the foyer before the performance begins. They are communicating in their own language: New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) 

Salonica (now Thessalonica), in Greece, is the wartime setting for this singular play. 1916 is the year.

Director Laura Haughey has crafted an intriguing piece of theatre from an unlikely friendship between a Serbian soldier fresh from mountain combat and a Kiwi sapper, survivor from Gallipoli. 

The Gallipoli survivor is deaf but has concealed this condition in order to join up. Shaun Fahey (actually deaf) conveys delightfully the doctor’s examination and subsequent medical certification.

His Serbian counterpart, Mihailo Ladevac, is alternately puzzled by his new friend and jubilant when he manages to understand him. 

The interplay of communication – in English, in Serbian, and in sign language – between the two, as well as with the audience, forms the substance of the play.

Physical theatre and mime are incorporated. Watching the two don imaginary soldier’s garb with buttons, belt and boots is another highlight.

No review of this play would be complete without praise for its staging, its lighting and its music. The simplicity of the staging enhances the action. A screen at the back for projection of photographs; a couple of trestles and a couple of crates serve the action in various ingenious ways. The lighting is appropriately dim.

Musical accompaniment by Andy Duggan is a notable feature. It consists of piano, guitar, and violin – all sounds generated live. There’s nothing electronic here, in keeping with the period of the piece. Duggan refers to “layering up” the sounds to keep pace with the actors’ dialogue. Because of Fahey’s deafness, it’s up to Duggan to stay on cue.

The inclusiveness of this production – accessible to both deaf and hearing audiences – is a clue to its success. Congratulations to all involved for a piece that generates a fourth language: that of warmth and empathy.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer