4. Sarajevo Youth Theater

Take the Kulovića street (direction: south) to Hotel Bosnia, which will appear after 50 metres on your right. Once you reach it, on your left, you will see the Sarajevo Youth Theatre with its recognizable white stripes that stretch across the walkway to the building.

The Sarajevo Youth Theater was founded in 1977 when two other prominent theaters of the city, the Pionir Theater and the Muppet Theater joined forces. Established in 1950, at its beginnings, the Pionir Theater did not acquire a full ensemble and hired actors when it was needed. It was in the 1960s when it was named to Youth Theater adopting a new identity and having its own acting group. The Muppet Theater, under the direction of Adolf Pomezny, the Czech who brought the first marionettes to Sarajevo, was widely well-known for its devotion to use only marionettes. After their merger, the Sarajevo Youth Theater was born which had two independent scenes performing plays and marionette shows. During the siege, the Sarajevo Youth Theater did not cease its function. On the contrary, it became a symbol of resistance helping the citizens to have a kind of proper social life. Sarajevo fairytale (Bajka o Sarajevu), and Little tiger (Tigriček) were among the plays performed during the siege. It is estimated that around 50 productions took place during that period. “Every performance was full. Audiences wanted to go: they had no electricity, they had no television, they had only theatre,” recalled Izunin Bajrovic, who played in Waiting for Godot.

Waiting for Godot was probably the most notable play performed in the Sarajevo Youth Theater. Directed by Susan Sontag, a prominent American writer, activist and director, the play received its premiere on August 17, 1993. “Waiting for Godot was a metaphor for Sarajevo, because Sarajevo was waiting for a miracle,” testifies Gordana Knežević, who was working as deputy editor of the city’s daily newspaper, Oslobodjenje. For Susan Sontag, directing a play in besieged Sarajevo was an act of conscience rather than a political act. “I was not under the illusion that going to Sarajevo to direct the play would make me useful in the way I could be if I were a doctor or a water-system engineer. It would be a small contribution. But it was the only one of three things I do -- write, make films, and direct in the theater -- which yields something that would exist only in Sarajevo, that would be made and consumed there.” Sontag transcribed her experience as a director in Sarajevo in an essay included in the collection Where the Stress Falls.

“All of us were very thin. We had no basic things: no windows, no electricity, no water, no food,” says Izudin Bajrović, the actor who played Vladimir in Samuel Beckett’s play. The actors were starving and during every break in rehearsal should immediately lie down, too fatigued to stay on their feet. Susan Sontag smuggled bread rolls out of the Holiday Inn, where she sojourned, for the cast. Bajrovic recalls an occasion when she procured half a watermelon as a birthday gift for his daughter; by then, the fruits had become a rarity. Despite the extremely difficult circumstances, acting was a healing procession and a way to survive. “Acting is a kind of therapy for me,” Ines Fančović, the actress who played Pozo, confessed at the time. “If I didn’t work almost every day I would find it very difficult to live through this war. The shelling and the death of many friends so far has shaken me, but acting helps me forget.”