Dunstan Playhouse AFC Fri 15 Mar 2024
‘This is not the end’ is the final slide of the credits we see last of all, like at the movies. It’s a reminder of the excellent incorporation of video into this theatre piece. The composition works extremely well, to transport us into the rainforest, and to bring the people there onto the stage. When they directly interact with the live performers, the illusion is complete.
The sign also reminds us that the struggle of the indigenous peoples of the Amazonian basin for their land rights is ongoing. They still keep intact the power of their own ‘cosmology,’ and maintain their intimate relationship to their land, despite the constant harassment and much worse.
With a basis of Brechtian realism, the director Milo Rau blends beautifully both the ancient art of Greek theatre and their current resistance.
For most of the time the only musical accompaniment is a solo guitar, playing recurring, haunting themes. The musician is also choir master for the ‘Greek’ chorus. Along with the other actors, he relates the whole production process from his own perspective. Their stories add yet a third dimension to the drama.
The Bard once used a similar three-part mix, but unlike A Midsummer Nights Dream there is no magical realism here. The three strands are woven together into a potent unity.
The chorus and some of the cast are from the local workers movement. They bring a fierce joy to their singing and to their roles, born from the vicious violence going back five hundred years. The seer from the original story is personified by one of their own philosophers, who warns us to ‘save what we love.’ Having lived with their own apocalypse for so long, he can see how and why we are blind to it now.
‘Nothing is more monstrous than man,’ is their starting quote from Sophocles to frame this work. And we don’t have to look far to affirm this, with the obscene rise in obesity everywhere.
The civil war that begins the story becomes one of the many massacres they have endured. And the chorus repeats for us, so the point is crystal clear, we are all one family. The murderers and their victims are kin.
The connection is not hard to find: that land is cleared to grow things like sugar, corn and soy. Not to feed the hungry, but as fodder for cattle around the world, to supply the amount of animal flesh required for the growing global consumption; i.e. many murders to satisfy the demand for more meat.
5 Stars
David Cronin
Antigone in the Amazon continues at The Dunstan Playhouse until March 17th. Book at Adelaide Festival. Click HERE to purchase your tickets:
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The Clothesline Rating...
David Cronin
A beautiful blend of both the ancient art of Greek theatre and the ongoing struggle of the indigenous peoples of the Amazonian basin for their land rights.
