The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, on tour June 2004

SINCE COMMUNICADO came to an unhappy end in 1998, founding artistic director Gerry Mulgrew has kept himself busy with freelance work, but has yet to recapture the zest and drive that characterised his company in its glory days. He’s hung on to the Communicado name, however, and we’d like to think it’s only a matter of time before he reclaims his place as Scotland’s most thrilling director.

Although it would be rash to place Zlata’s Diary on a par with critical and commercial hits such as Cyrano de Bergerac, Jock Tamson’s Bairns or Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, this is a bold and adventurous show that proves there’s life in the old dog yet.

The source material has a particular power of its own. Written during the war that led to the break up of Yugoslavia, it is the work of Zlata Filipovic, a middle-class 10-year-old whose world of piano practice and school lessons was cruelly disrupted by the arrival of sniper fire and shells. Her diary is plain-talking and emotional, darting between the everyday concerns of any girl heading for her teenage years and the incomprehensible horrors of a war that steals friends and relations and deprives the survivors of heat, electricity and food.

One of the lucky ones, Filipovic survived – unlike her role model, Anne Frank – thanks to the escape route offered by the Parisian publisher of her diary, which became an international best-seller. But the fact that she is alive and well and living in Dublin, does not diminish the diary’s plaintive cry on behalf of the innocent young victims of war the world over.

Of course, it wasn’t written as a play, which is this production’s strength and weakness. On one hand, it forces Mulgrew, who also adapted it, to interject explanatory scenes to bring younger viewers up to speed with the politics – and most of these are laboured and awkward. But on the other hand, it gives him the theatrical freedom to create actor-centred improvisations inspired by the diary – and most of these show real flair and imagination.

Coupled with the emotional power of the story, it is these scenes that win out, creating an engaging and heartfelt evocation of life during wartime that also has a vibrant theatrical presence.

Zlata’s Diary can be seen at The Spectrum Theatre, Inverness, on Saturday 5 June 2004

© Mark Fisher, 2004