Signature

[The following review ran in the Denver Post on Thursday, April 16th.]

With the U.S. embroiled in two Asian wars while still brokering a settlement in the Middle East, it's easy to ignore other equally devastating and insidious conflicts. In her newly expanded one-woman show, Signature, now playing at the Manitou Art Theatre in Colorado Springs, Rebecca Buric explores the meaning of one woman's life in the midst of the ethnic violence that regularly visits town of Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Rebecca Buric as Aida in Signature Photo: Manitou Art Theatre

Buric's journey began during a 1997 visit to the region, when she saw a 13-second news clip showing an unnamed local woman being shot down by a sniper. Horrified, Buric wrote this piece in homage to the woman's life, with the hope of changing the behaviors that caused her death.

To transform this senseless and random act of violence into a meaningful work of art, Buric begins by giving the victim a name, Aida, and then envisioning a lifetime of memories for her, which flash before us in a phantasmagoria of striking images and poignant encounters.

Rebecca Buric as Aida in Signature Photo: Manitou Art Theatre

Buric's mastery of the regional accent and phrasing (her father grew up in Rieka, Croatia), blended with versions of her father's and grandmother's recollections—all choreographed to a series of sweet local melodies and dance steps and dressed up with a few well-chosen props and costume accessories—lend a mesmerizing authenticity to the proceedings.

As a writer, Buric provides her performance self with evocative passages, rich symbolic segues, and heartbreaking conflict. As a narrator and actor, she leverages her script and a vivid affective memory to conjure people and places that materialize like holograms in our imaginations, connecting the dots of Aida's dissolving life.

Rebecca Buric as Aida in Signature Photo: Manitou Art Theatre

Particularly striking were Aida's memories of her grandmother "covered with flour like a pastry," her Croatian reaction to her Serbian husband Jano's enlistment: "You have made us enemies," and her son Dusho's finger-painted blue hand prints on the wall of a secret cave hidden beneath a waterfall, which hid local schoolchildren from searching soldiers during one episode of the perennial local war.

During the talk-back that serves as a second act to every show, Buric engages the audience in a discussion around the themes of the story—war and fear, love and hope—asking us to consider the behaviors we teach each other: "Will we stay with our old divisive beliefs and tribal agreements, or will we evolve?" she asks. This evening, she caps off the session with an explanation of the show's title by way of some wisdom from a Lakota elder who helped her weather a grueling sweat lodge rite: "Hope is G-d's signature in us."

On any given night, what happens during the talk back is as unpredictable as the performance. One evening, the mother of a U.S. Army sniper unburdened herself to the group, expressing her grief. "We held the space for her," Buric explains. "No one could say anything. It hurt. I wanted to make sure that her expression in the moment was welcome and told her that we really appreciated her courage and strength. It was a quiet moment embracing the difficult."

By diverting us from the conflicts to which we have become inured, transporting us to the festering mosaic of the Balkans, and inviting us into an intimate and heartfelt relationship with Aida, Buric peals away our psychological armor, forcing us to consider the real-life consequences of tacitly sustaining a culture based on illusory divisions, economic cannibalism, and war profiteering.

The Manitou Art Theatre's presentation of Signature runs Thursdays through Sundays until April 26th. 719-685-4729.

Bob Bows