Not only did he see it as a cautionary tale of post-colonial societal collapse,but also a parable about climate change and the impact humans have on the environment the world over.
Belgian director Alexander Devriendt on the set of ‘Are we not drawn onward to new erA’.Wolter Peeters
“We arrive,we build up,we destroy,we raise statues up then we raze them to the ground again,” said Devriendt,the artistic director of the Belgian company Ontroerend Goed.
As a response the troupe createdAre we not drawn onward to new erA,which plays as part of the Sydney Festival at the Roslyn Packer Theatre until this Sunday. He calls it a “palindrome play” intended,like its title,to be read and seen the same backward as forward.
“We searched palindromes to find one of the longest in the English language to ask what if we played the human story backwards to project it forward,” Devriendt said.
He and the theatre company he founded with friends at the age of 16 in the Flemish city of Ghent,took the Garden of Eden theme of the fall from grace as a beginning and end point.
“We arrive,we build up,we destroy,we raise statues up then we raze them to the ground again.”
Alexander Devriendt,theatre director
It starts with a familiar scene – a woman,a man,a tree and an apple as a springboard to tell the story of human civilisation’s self-destructive behaviour.
“The show is an invitation to think differently ... to think about the impact we have on the planet and the impossibility of going back into the past,the regrets we may have about not following a different path from the one we are on now,” he said.
It also explores the role of glorifying people in statues rather than protecting the planet.
The show has toured the world from Edinburgh to Russia,China,Taiwan and all over the United States,following George Floyd’s murder and protests when a number of,has been received differently by each audience Devriendt said.
“People think differently about statues the world over. In Moscow it was about bringing down statues of the Soviet era,in the US in the era of decolonising and Black Lives Matter they were tearing down statues of white colonisers – but the principle is the same:why do we put people on pedestals in the first place?”
This is the sixth time the pioneering Ontroerend Goed company has been part of the Sydney Festival,first appearing in 2009,with, where theatregoers were blindfolded.
In 2012,the Belgian provocateurs worked with the Sydney Theatre Company onOnce and for All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen,an anarchic play performed by 13 teenagers.
Are we not drawn onward to new erAis at Roslyn Packer Theatre until January 20.
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