“They Are All Gone” — The unbearable loneliness of those left behind

With the arrival of Sadika’s “guests” — her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren — the stage is filled with strange feelings of uncertainty and condolence. The children’s voices can only be heard through headphones given to the audience, creating a surreal effect, with sonic disconnections increasing the scene’s ambiguity: Are these presences real? Or are we inside Sadika’s burdened psyche? The characters on stage bring gifts from the past: childhood toys, old school reports, and photographs salvaged with the help of technology. The living room is transformed into a gallery of relics, a private museum curated by longing.
The illusion almost culminates in a moment of bliss — the sounds of children’s voices who are absent and present, shift into a shocking, carefully composed revelation. Sadika is not a mother hosting guests; she is a survivor of the Srebrenica massacre, left alone in a grim, repetitive routine. She inhabits a space between life and death, haunted by what she has experienced. Her past replays endlessly in her mind, turning it into a torture chamber from which there is no escape.