Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 5
Credits:
Concept & Direction: Milo Rau; Text: Milo Rau & Ensemble
On stage – Frederico Araujo, Sara De Bosschere, Pablo Casella & Arne De Tremerie live on stage
On Video – Kay Sara, Gracinha Donato, Célia Maracajà, Martinez Corrêa, choir of militants of Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra (MST), and as Tiresias: Ailton Krenak
Dramaturgy: Giacomo Bisordi; Collaboration Dramaturgy: Douglas Estevam, Martha Kiss Perrone; Assistant Dramaturgy: Kaatje De Geest, Carmen Hornbostel
Collaboration Concept, Research & Dramaturgy: Eva-Maria Bertschy
Set Design: Anton Lukas; Costume Design: Gabriela Cherubini, An De Mol, Jo De Visscher, Anton Lukas
Light Design: Dennis Diels; Music Composition: Elia Rediger, Pablo Casella
Video Design: Moritz von Dungern; Video Making: Fernando Nogari;
Video Editing: Joris Vertenten
Direction Assistant: Katelijne Laevens; Intern Direction Assistant: Zacharoula Kasaraki, Lotte Mellaerts
Production Management: Klaas Lievens, Gabriela Gonçalves; Assistant Production Management: Jack Do Santos; Technical Production Management: Oliver Houttekiet
Stage Manager: Marijn Vlaeminck
Technique: Max Ghymonprez, Sander Michiels, Raf Willems
Special thanks to Carolina Bufolin
Production: NTGent
Coproduction: The International Institute of Political Murder (IIPM), Festival d'Avignon, Romaeuropa Festival, Factory International (Manchester), La Villette Paris, Tandem - Scène nationale (Arras Douai), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt), Equinoxe Scène Nationale (Châteauroux), Wiener Festwochen
In collaboration with Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)
The Antigone in the Amazon team would like to thank and acknowledge support provided by Goethe Institut Saõ Paulo, PRO HELVETIA programme COINCIDENCIA - Kulturausch Schweiz - Südamerika, The Belgian Tax Shelter
Hero image and gallery images - Photo credit: Kurt Van der Elst
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www.sydneyfestival.org.au/stories/your-guide-to-antigone :
Created by the award-winning Swiss director and playwright Milo Rau in collaboration with Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement and the Belgian theatre company NTGent, Antigone in the Amazon draws a line connecting an ancient Greek tragedy of a young woman who defied a despotic king to present-day activists and First Nations people working to save the Amazon rainforests.
At the production’s heart is a real-life incident: the 1996 massacre of activists from the Landless Workers’ Movement by a unit of Brazilian federal police. A peaceful blockade of a highway ended bloodily, with 19 of the protestors killed.
In Rau’s retelling of the story, a modern-day Antigone stands up for those advocating land rights in the Amazon. Marshalled against her is the apparatus of a corrupt state. The tragedy is that of the Amazon itself – and by extension that of humanity. Not for nothing has the Amazon been likened to “the lungs of the planet”.
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To quote from the play, Antigone in the Amazon is “the magic of theatre which transcends violence”.
This is no mere academic claim. The Europeans have worked with the people in Brazil in the Latin American tradition known as magical realism, creating the most emotionally powerful theatre I have ever experienced.
We
normally experience theatre as illusion used to help us reflect on
reality – we stay at a degree of ‘distance’ to keep ourselves ‘safe’.
But when we see on huge screen video the people who survived that
massacre, and the actors live on stage in front of us, as they tell and
re-enact what happened to the people as they were being killed, it feels
as if we are present at that moment of awful reality.
The worst –
and best – moment was when we found out that the police were ready to
ban the blocking of the road for the annual commemoration of the
massacre, on this occasion when the filming was underway, just as the
junta’s police had done in 1996. But instead of arresting and shooting
people, they listened to a woman who spoke to them about the importance
of the event to the whole community – and allowed the re-enactment and
filming to go ahead.
Otherwise we might have seen a repeat of the
refusal to allow Antigone to properly commemorate her brother’s death –
recorded by Sophocles in Ancient Greece. Perhaps his play was a
theatrical fiction about the rights of the ordinary people, but
yesterday Antigone’s story became real.
You have only another day or so to see Antigone in the Amazon.
Do your utmost to get to Sydney to see it. If you can’t – and even if
you do – remember how great theatre transcends violence, and seek to
make this your motto in action. I am in awe not only of the Swiss Milo
Rau, but of all those non-violent activists like the Brazilian Landless
Workers’ Movement (MST) members who played their part in Antigone in the Amazon.
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PS
If you would like to understand the Latin American magical realism
tradition, and its place in responding to colonialism, look up the
article in the The Brown Daily Herald by Aalia Jagwani, Arts &
Culture Editor, October 6, 2022 at
www.browndailyherald.com/article/2022/10/latin-american-literary-traditions-through-time
©Frank McKone, Canberra
