Review: TRADE, Old Joint Stock Birmingham - Tour
It is estimated that 50 million people worldwide are in modern slavery. Several million of these are victims of forced sexual exploitation, yet it’s an issue that receives little attention. Ella Dorman-Gajic’s bold and brilliantly written play Trade tackles the subject head-on, giving the audience a horrifyingly realistic view of the European sex-trafficking industry from the perspective of a young Bosnian woman caught up in it against her will.
That young woman is 18-year-old Jana, who falls in love with a customer at her family’s grocery store and agrees to accompany him to London, only to find herself drugged and held captive in a Sarajevo basement. We follow Jana through the next four years of her life as she endures relentless abuse and fights to survive, all the while keeping a heartbreaking count of how many days have passed since she left home.
Jana is played by Katarina Novkovic in a stunning professional debut. Novkovic is at the centre of every scene, and grabs our attention in a vice-like hold from the very first moment, not letting go for the entire 70-minute runtime. It's a complex role; Jana tells us at the start that hers is not a "perfect story", and she is not the ideal female victim. The choices she makes in order to protect herself and the family she has back home lead her down a dark path, but Novkovic maintains our sympathy throughout and Dorman-Gajic's writing ensures that Jana's every decision is understandable.
Her journey is illustrated most powerfully by her costume: Jana begins the play in a pristine white jumpsuit, which gradually degenerates, becoming sullied by Jana's bloodstains and the vomit of other girls.
Novkovic has excellent support from Eleanor Roberts who smoothly juggles the roles of Jana's younger sister and a number of other female victims. Ojan Genc is the third and final cast member, taking on the roles of Jana's boyfriend, her captor, a journalist and various clients. Using one actor for all the male roles emphasises how the men in Jana's life are interchangeable, with each of them using her in some way, and Genc manages to shift seamlessly between apparent sweetness and shocking aggression.
It's not just the cast that are pared down. Natasha Gatward's set is also sparse but effective, made up of packing boxes that are shifted around to form different environments, echoing the idea that women are seen as just another cargo to be moved. Behind the boxes, video projections on the backdrop help us to travel across Europe from a pulsing Sarajevo club to endless roads and dank London hotel rooms. The projections also subtly integrate captions that make the play accessible for both native Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian speakers and d/Deaf audiences.
Trade isn’t without moments of lightness, especially between Jana and her sister, but it can be a harrowing watch. Still, while the play is unflinching in its portrayal of what trafficking victims have to endure, Dorman-Gajic’s restrained and often poetic text and Maddy Corner’s sensitive direction make sure it’s never graphic or exploitative.
Trade forces us to confront modern slavery, and to think about how society decides which victims are “worthy” of support - a particularly pressing issue with the advent of the UK’s new Illegal Migration Bill, which anti-slavery groups fear will remove support from survivors of trafficking.
Fierce, unapologetic and gripping, Trade is a vital and timely piece of theatre.
***** Five stars
Reviewed by: Laura Lott
Trade plays at the Old Joint Stock in Birmingham until 9 April before visiting Norwich Arts Centre on 13 April.
For more information on these issues, please click here.