A playful, multilingual comedy about Balkan culture, identity, migration and belonging
The booking link is https://www.tickettailor.com/
“Evo evo” sounds like a reassuring promise and an excellent way to miss a deadline. How did you turn that elastic sense of time into comedy—and did it ever threaten to derail rehearsals?
“Evo evo” is one of those phrases that can mean a few things: “I’m coming”, “Just about to”, “It’s happening”, or occasionally, “Please stop asking me where I am.” That elasticity became a useful starting point for the show because it reflects something we recognised in ourselves and in the cultures we come from – a different relationship with time, urgency and the promise of getting something done.
And yes, it threatened our rehearsals! But rather than trying to eliminate that chaos, we became interested in it – and turned it into the core concept of the show. The title eventually became a kind of philosophy for the process, as well as the show itself: we would get there. Maybe not exactly when we said we would, and probably with several coffees along the way, but evo,evo – we would get there!
The show follows four artists trying to agree on how to represent their culture. Which real creative disagreement proved too good to leave out, and what did it reveal about your different ideas of being Balkan?
One recurring disagreement was whether something was “Balkan enough” to belong in the show. Someone would bring in an idea, song, story or reference and someone else would immediately question whether we were representing ourselves or simply reproducing an image people already expect from us.
What made it funny was that there was rarely a unanimous answer. We come from Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, and even within that, our relationships to language, family, history and identity are different. Sometimes we would argue passionately about something that, from the outside, might seem incredibly minor – and then realise that the argument itself was the interesting material.
It revealed that “Balkan” isn’t one fixed identity we all carry in the same way. It can be a geography, a history, a feeling, a joke, a contradiction, or something we are still trying to define.
Coffee, cigarettes, loud arguments: familiar details can feel affectionate to insiders and confirm stereotypes for outsiders. How do you play with those images while keeping audiences curious about what lies beneath them?
Mozda segment odgovora –
Although we play with stereotypes and cliches, all of the comedy stems from the truth. From our own experiences, opinions, feelings. We just wrap it up in silliness.
There is also a lot of affection in the way we play with these things. We are not standing outside the culture observing it. We are inside it, arguing with it, observing and analysing it, laughing at it – and sometimes embarrassing ourselves with it. That tension is where the comedy lives, and the truth beneath it is what resonates with the audiences.
Has living in London made you feel more Balkan, or made that label harder to pin down? What have you discovered you share that might never have occurred to you back home?
Probably both. Living in London has made us more conscious of the things we might not have noticed at home. When you are surrounded by people from everywhere, suddenly a particular word, gesture, food, song or family habit can feel incredibly specific.
At the same time, being away from home has made the label much harder to pin down. Having spent years here, our identities have definitely changed as London has inevitably rubbed off. The more time you spend away from home, the more you feel like you’re not quite who you used to be back home, which in turn creates the need to gravitate to those roots and identity. It’s complicated… As we say in the show. But that’s exactly what we find interesting and explore in the show – and again, this migrant experience of inbetween-ness is something a lot of people can relate to.
In a multilingual show, different audience members will understand different things. Is there a moment when you deliberately let some people in on the joke while leaving others to find their own way—and what interests you about that?
Language is a very important element of the show. Making a multi-lingual piece has been really interesting as it opens up a lot of questions and opportunities to play with meaning. What information do you translate vs. which moments don’t need verbal translation but still get the message across. We make sure that all audience members are included and understand everything, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone receives it in the same way. We like playing with semantics, cultural differences and the things that become slightly absurd when you move between languages. There is also something very particular about the sound and directness of our native languages. We can be completely affectionate with each other and still sound like we’re having a serious argument.
If someone leaves EVO EVO still unable to define “Balkan”, but feeling they’ve spent an evening among people they recognise, would that count as success? What kind of belonging can theatre offer that a label cannot?
We don’t know how to define Balkan ourselves, to be completely honest. No one does – in fact it’s a source of continuous discussions… It’s a beautifully complex part of the world, and it’s precisely that complexity and difficulty to define it as one identity that we explore in the show. That’s what it’s about actually. We’re not here to find a definition or pack an identity or culture neatly in a box. We’re here to exchange and experience. Theatre creates a temporary community. For the duration of a performance, strangers sit together, share an experience and recognise things in one another. You don’t necessarily have to agree on what you are, or where you belong, to experience that recognition. Maybe belonging can sometimes be less about finding the right label and more about realising you’re not alone.