The cast met at the end of May in a theater in the East Village. A group of about 35 people, of all ages, from almost every part of former Yugoslavia, gathered in a small hall. I was among the oldest participants. Few faces were familiar. Before my arrival, I decided: I would not form any kind of relationship with the other participants. The Yugoslavia I loved was destroyed. In agony I buried painful illusions about my homeland. The only reason I had come was because of my interest in the theater and my attraction to Greek tragedy.

      The Trojan Women had also been produced the year before. For the second time, the director and her group of American enthusiasts had assembled Yugoslav amateurs as the cast. The encounter was chilly; people looked at each other with suspicion. Before the official meeting with the director, some exchanged courteous but hesitant words. Many of us stayed silent and remote. Our director introduced us to each other. We shook hands, smiled, and pronounced our names. I perceived the situation as grotesque, and I could hardly wait for rehearsal to start.

      A tall woman approached me. She recognized me. She was a TV-director from Sarajevo, and was my brother's high-school classmate. She and my relatives were close friends, including my cousin and his wife. I was confused and surprised by these conversations I didn't expect. I wanted to avoid further talk ― I wished that so much. But the references to my family, whom I hadn't seen for five years ― my brother and my cousin ― intrigued me. I engaged in the talk. My first fight to remain distant among these Yugoslavs failed. I learned that she, a Muslim, had spent several years with her children and husband living under the shelling. Terrified, in order to save the children's lives, they had escaped to the United States. Once prominent Yugoslavs, she now worked as a maid in New York and her husband, a college professor, worked in a restaurant kitchen.

      We have thirteen days to rehearse, and two days to accomplish three performances. They assure us that we have enough time and strength to achieve this. To let us newcomers feel relaxed, they have asked the returning performers to guide and set examples for us.

      At last the rehearsal started. Everybody read some of the script. We new performers interpreted our lines in shy, low voices. The experienced ones were louder and confident. Some of them looked at us ironically, and sneered. I was crushed by humiliation and wanted to give up. I decided not to come back.

      At home, I spent a restless night. The feeling of embarrassment didn't leave me. But I couldn't resist the Greek drama, and I was at the rehearsal the next day, trying to justify the bitterness and its motive.

      At the same time, all of us underwent our own particular pain, which was unintelligible to others and a cause of the tensions that lingered between us. Afraid of each other, of our limited English, of our ability to grasp the play and perform; anxious to achieve a brilliance that would distinguish us from everybody else in the cast; striving to satisfy our own vanities and conquer feelings of inferiority, we sometimes grew offensive. Ironic smiles, mocking faces, nasty comments, and malicious remarks occurred. We exchanged sharp words, and some, including me, threatened again to leave.

      Whatever happened, there were no visible hostilities related to the war. No one uttered a single hint of national or religious disagreement. If there was any reference to bloodshed, it started in shy whispering. There was nothing secret in these undertones; we just didn't want to hurt each other or provoke the rage of vengeful emotions. It seemed as though we had a secret, sacred, unuttered pact that we would not degrade ourselves more deeply than we had already done in Yugoslavia.

      Slowly, we loomed our characters around each other's creations, weaving them into the epic: at first, amorphous, sluggish; then, more clearly outlined, consistent, dynamic. In these moments, each of us, no matter where we came from, recognized a rhythm, a common pace, the notes themselves, and we became one soul formed of something that politically, geographically, legally, did not exist. Here in New York, willing or not, we were only Yugoslavs, striving to revive an old, lost life. I felt the radiation of longing and mutual sympathy for that lost country, and I surrendered to these emotions.

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