Silkworm

My only issue with Silkworm is that it is based, according to the director´s notes, on stories told to her by her family from Skurahnovtaz, “a small Hungarian village a half hour from Belgrade,” which is, as far as I know, in Serbia. But enough of the fine print and onto the performance…

Artem Barry and Danielle Le Saux-Farmer play a brother and sister living in Skurahnovtaz who reveal through artfully scripted words and supremely acted vignettes various tales from the village´s past and present. Trees have flesh and fingers, poppy seeds can stop a witch in her tracks, tables dance and (albeit obliquely) tell the future, tulips are black and babies are born with white eyes. While the spirituality continues unabated and the ‘old woman´ next door is viewed with suspicion, we learn of life in the course of the war, of nights of empty air raids, of dwindling supplies and of silkworms.

People die, though not due to bullets and bombs, and, as Ildi becomes more and more aware of the mystic nature of life in the village, her long-suffering brother stares at the one endlessly repeated movie on Serb television until he is goaded into telling another story from the days when the great oak was just a sapling… The clash of mysticism and industrialisation is beautifully personified by the authentic push and shove between the steady brother and flighty sister until the abrupt ending one Christmas Eve. Fantastic, in all definitions of the word.