Ivana Sajko’s ‘Woman Bomb’ is designed to ‘deconstruct the playwright's creative process’. To this end, the Croatian playwright has created three personalities: a playwright; her nagging voice personified; and the protagonist of the play she’s writing, a female suicide bomber.
It is strange that a play about suicide bombers should have so little momentum. Sajko's research is thorough but her script is erratic and tough to follow. No doubt this confusion is meant to mimic the complex creative process, but the play and audience suffer for it. Directors Maja Milatovi-Ovadia and Vanda Buktovi obfuscate things further, with disruptive lighting states and distracting screen projections.
Laura Harling is cold and steely as a girl intent on suicide. But this meta-theatrical script is more interested in the playwright’s pounding headache than the girl’s imminent explosion. As she prepares to press the button, the bomber says: ‘In brief, my life as a woman will end in a bang’. If only this had been so.