Trade – A New Play Giving a Platform to the Devastating World of Modern Slavery

Review by Ella Rowdon

Trade is a brutal, beautiful, and harrowing depiction of a woman’s imprisonment into modern slavery.

Written by critically acclaimed Ella Doman-Gajic and co-produced and directed by Maddy Corner, it follows Jana, a young Yugoslavian girl who begins the play as an embodiment of the very essence of youth – with a thirst for acceptance and unconditional love, a desire for a place in the world in which she feels she belongs, and a drive to follow her own path.

The play, following a successful run in London in February 2022 at the Omnibus Theatre, was performed at the Pleasance Theatre in March 2023. It has since toured to several other theatres in the UK including the Nottingham Nonsuch and the Birmingham Old Joint Stock.

The beauty of Trade is that Jana is a nuanced character full of contradictions. The audience follows her path from a victim of heinous treatment under the power of men who operate in the abduction, drugging, and raping of women, to a woman who in order to survive becomes complicit in the system of cruelty, manifesting the intricacies of power dynamics in a sadistic web of the interpersonal and economical. The stunning dialogue and imagery evoked in Dorman-Gajic’s writing, paired with Corner’s expertly executed direction and a terrifically talented cast, superbly captures the oscillation between corruption and innocence, of survival and morality.

Katarina Novakovic plays the role of Jana with conviction and a quiet vulnerability that remained a consistent undercurrent in her performance, mapping Jana’s journey with respect and with the capacity to convey the multi-dimensions of her character. We see this perhaps most poignantly in a beautiful moment where Jana interacts with Iona, the latest victim of the trade. Jana hesitates, switching back and forth between dialect and tone, where we can clearly see the disparity between her façade as Stefan’s right-hand woman and her ‘true’ self. As she tears up the phone number of Iona’s sister, we are shocked; the act can be perceived as both an act of empathy and protection over the girl, highlighting the futility of attempting to escape, but also as an act of bitterness and antipathy - Jana did not get to escape the barbarism, and neither would she.

Trade also explores the Anglo centralism and the power of the English language. Those who speak English are regarded with more respect and given more agency than those who do not. As Jana says, London ‘wants me to clean it’, highlighting this oppression running like a thread through the fabric of the trade and shining a light on its destructive nature. Paired with the Serbo-Croatian translation of the script projected onto a screen, Dorman-Gajic simultaneously empowers the language by giving it a place throughout the play where the character’s native tongue and thus her identity are always present.

Ojan Genc, who plays the roles of Stefan and Nikola, excels in his ability to placate an audience with the charisma and humour he brings to the characters, thus plunging us deeper into discomfort and horror when we glimpse their true intentions. Through this depiction we experience Jana’s being led into a false sense of security, only to realise that she is completely vulnerable and totally alone, thus echoing the reality of modern slavery, (women and girls account for 99% of victims.)

Trade encapsulates the inherent danger of being a woman in today’s society even outside of the slave trade – the innate distrust we are expected and even encouraged to foster in a bid for self-protection, perpetuated by the violence and psychological abuse we consistently see in the media and in wider society, highlighted in Jana’s expression that ‘nothing comes for free – especially when it comes to men’.

Perhaps the story could have been even more affecting if it had incorporated more voices of women within the trade, to diversify and deepen our understanding of the experiences of different people and their stories. Jana states ‘I don’t have a perfect story up my sleeve. The only story I have is my own’ – a story we the audience experience cathartically, getting to know our protagonist in great depth. Dorman-Gajic successfully sheds a light on the inner workings of the mind of one woman; – a woman who serves as an example of the pain of being displaced, abused, and manipulated. Trade is performed with a minimal set of cardboard boxes that help construct a set that is consistently moved and rearranged, capturing this transitory and debilitating nature of Jana’s life.

Jana is imprisoned physically, psychologically, and emotionally – even when Jana gains privileges, her freedoms are a mere guise – she undoubtedly remains an object, a tool, a commodity; her humanity stripped away, ‘dripping off like flesh’ under the jurisdiction of men.

Trade is a thought-provoking and important viewing, giving a platform to the devastating world of modern slavery. Its most hard-hitting truth is that this world exists not so far away from ours; and it is a world that demands our immediate and impassioned attention.