Four sisters return to Zagreb from Vienna, Glasgow, Berlin and London to be with their mother before her surgery, at her request. Three of them somehow manage to arrive on time, while the fourth remains stranded at an airport, trying to stay connected and be with them, if only digitally.
Saša, Sabina, Sofia and Suzana lead markedly different lives, each on the verge of a major decision, striving for change, resisting the circumstances they inhabit, and each in her own way at odds with herself and the life she has found herself living. Between them lie ideological tensions and seemingly irreconcilable differences, but also a strong bond of sisterly love and understanding.
In her play The Scattered, Tena Štivičić charts a world in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic as a process of breakdown, populated by individuals who, despite a crisis of identity, continue to search for meaning or a place to call home. Her protagonists are once again in transit, suspended between departure and return, inhabiting a liminal space marked by anger, anxiety and constant unease. They no longer have a place to go to, nor anywhere to return to. The home they left behind is changing as death claims their parents and neighbours. The lives they have built are collapsing. The cities they once moved to have failed to fulfil their promises. Štivičić’s four sisters, much like their Chekhovian predecessors, dream of new beginnings.
The Scattered is not only a psychological study of family dynamics in moments of uncertainty, but also a story about a world in crisis. In a world where human bonds are disintegrating and communities collapsing, communication itself begins to fail. The sisters are separated not only by visible geographical borders; each is, within her own reality, alienated by the ideological divisions shaping everyday life. Their meeting in the physical world, in a dilapidated apartment cluttered with relics, becomes an opportunity to encounter one another anew and to recognise each other within the profound loneliness of the contemporary world. Their solitude, and even their despair, create a space for compromise, dialogue and painful truths — a fragile moment in which hope briefly becomes possible.
The Scattered premiered at the Berliner Ensemble in Berlin, directed by Laura Linnenbaum, and earned its author the Helene Weigel Award. The Croatian premiere will be directed by the award-winning Slovenian director Nina Rajić Kranjac.
