ANTIGONE IN THE AMAZON ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 24

 

                 

 Antigone in the Amazon

Concept and direction. Milo Rau.Text Milo Rau and Ensemble. Dramaturgy Giacomo Bisordi. Dramaturgical collaboration. Douglas Estevam and Martha Kiss Perrone. Assistant dramaturgy Kaatje de Geest and Carmen Hornbostel. Collaboration to concept, research and dramaturgy Eva Maria Bertschy.Musical composition Flip Rediger and Pablo Casella.Set Anton Lukas. Costumes Gabriela Cherubini, Jo de Visscher and Anton Lukas. Lightin Dennis Diels. Video Moritz von Dungern. Produced by NT Gent and Movimento dos Trabalhadores. (MTS)  Adelaide cast: Pablo Casella, Frederico Araujo, Janne Desmet and JoeriHappe. On Screen: Kay Sara, Gracinha Donato, Celia Maracaja, Choir of militants of Movimento do Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra (MST), and as Tiresias, Ailton Krenak. Dunstan Playhouse. Adelaide Festival  March 15-17 2024

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins 

Milo Rau’s production of Antigone in the Amazon is protest theatre at its heart. It lays bare the brutality and injustice of the dysfunctionalstate. It rails against the forces of evil. It shines a glaring light on the plight of the indigenous people of the Amazon forest and the landless workers forced from their homes and deprived of dignity and their rights. Antigone in the Amazon fuels the fire of fury against a state that brutalizes its citizens, destroys its nation’s beautiful landscape, drives a wedge between its wealthy and its poor and creates a society of outcasts. It is impossible not to feel outrage. Only the heartless would not be deeply moved by the treatment of citizens marginalized by a dictatorship or a fascistic elected government.

 Antigone in Amazon has been adapted by Rau and the Ensemble from Sophocles’ fifth century play about Antigone, who breaks the law of the state to bury her brother Polyneices against the command of the king Creon to leave the body for the beasts of the earth to feed upon. The parallels, almost 3000 years after Sophocles with the massacre of 19 protesting members of the Landless Worker’s Movement on April 17 1996 in the Brazilian state of Parta are uncanny and frightening. Antigone’s suicidal protest reverberates with chilling impact as Brazilian activists and Belgian theatre ensemble NT Gent restage the 1996 massacre. Survivors collaborate with the performers including activist and Trans actor Frederico Araujo who plays Polyniices and Antigone on stage  and one of the murdered protestors on video. The choir is conducted by Pablo Casella in the video of the horrific reenactment. He provides a guitar accompaniment to the performance on stage .

 Rau’s production combines Sophocles’ tragedy on stage with the video of the reenactment and a performance of Sophocles’ play for the indigenous people of the Amazon forest. As the government builds huge highways through the Amazon to transport gold and iron ore, the people who live in the forest are gradually being displaced from their land. It is the plight of the indigenous to be the victims of greed and prejudice. At times actors on stage interact with actors or members of the choir on the video, film and theatre. Casella underscores the action on stage with his guitar, conveying an immediate reality. The audience is thrust into the immediacy of the relationship between Sophocles’ drama and the contemporary tragedy played out on the video. The response to the callous shooting of the defenseless members of MST is gut-wrenching. Performances erupt with the raw emotions of people who understand the brutality in a country scarred by revolutions, military dictatorships and corrupt government. In a moment of utter anguish, Araujo flays about in the dirt upon the stage, screaming as the clouds of dust float through the air. It is a moment of absolute capitulation to the horror and despair that permeates the historical reality and the Greek tragedy.

The actors at times slip in and out of role. They introduce the story of Antigone to the audience at the start of the play. They describe the process of working with the choir and the people involved in the reenactment. They talk about their own involvement in working together. Their theatre is thoroughly committed, even didactic but driven by a need to inform and a will to reform.

Antigone in the Amazon does not strive to create catharsis for the audience. That is reserved for the people of Brazil who participate or witness this hybrid production. It is an inescapable depiction of the unjust treatment of the poor and disadvantaged. It is Brechtian in intent and evangelical in its message. As such, it is theatre at its most instructive, shocking and illuminating, anarchic and compassionate. It is the theatre of the oppressed that, in the words of Sophocles reminds us that we must not remain silent because “Much is monstrous yet nothing is more monstrous than man."

Photos by Kurt van der Elst

https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/digital-show-programs/antigone-in-the-amazon-show-program/#credits