Premiere: December 25, 2012, at Bitef Theatre (2012/2013 season)

“In many traditional Kosovar households, the wives of men who disappeared during the war still live with their husband’s family, even though more than a decade has passed since the conflict. The authority that once belonged to the husband has now been transferred to his family. These women have virtually no private lives. Whatever they do is seen as a reflection of their husband’s family, and they are expected to remain under constant supervision in order to protect the family’s honour.

But what happens when the husband’s family consists of only his mother? Can she really keep everything under control with an iron hand? How does she hold the household together while being haunted by memories of her missing son—the son she once tried to hide in the cellar? And how does she maintain her authority when her daughter-in-law begins to see the fate of her missing husband differently, and the two women keep hurting one another until their relationship reaches an impossible impasse?

Finger explores this relationship against the backdrop of one of the most painful issues in Kosovo today: the fate of the missing. Yet it does so from an entirely new—and for this society, deeply radical—perspective: that of the women left behind.

Finger is the index finger that no longer knows where to point and cannot identify the guilty party. It is also the shadow of an enormous finger pointing at you, making you feel guilty. It is the finger that offers both reconciliation and separation. It is an excuse to cry over the trivial pain of an everyday household task, masking a far deeper pain within. It is a constant reminder that something terrible has happened—and that everything can still fall apart. It is a threat. It is something you scratch yourself with. It is something you use to touch.”

Doruntina Basha

“Two women. They can no longer live together, yet neither can live without the other. The only way to change their situation is to hurt one another. And the more they hurt each other, the more alive they feel.”

Ana Tomović