Atelje 212, Belgrade (presented as part of the 58th BITEF)
The atmosphere in the hall was heated as Swiss director Milo Rau gives an explicitly political speech at part of the opening address of the 58th BITEF. The audience is perhaps not so accustomed to the status quo being provoked under such ceremonial conditions, especially not in such a direct and defiant manner.
In his opening speech, Milo Rau addressed what is the hottest topic in Serbia right now. He criticised the plans to open a lithium mine in the valley of Jadar, which will result in the displacement of 20,000 people, the poisoning of fertile soil and pollution of underground sources of drinking water. Rau called out the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the companies Volkswagen and Rio Tinto, claiming that they are not motivated by a desire to save the world with electric cars, but rather to gain power and boost their bank accounts. He accuses the governments of Brazil, Serbia and Germany of selling out their country to international investors.
Regular BITEF audiences will be familiar with this combative director, He has been here twice before with work that conveyed political messages through artistic means. The first time was at the 50th BITEF with Compassion: The History of the Machine Gun, a production of the Schaubühne Berlin; the second time was at the 53rd BITEF with Orestes in Mosul, the first part of Rau’s trilogy about ancient myths, which he has produced at NTGent, Belgium, where until recently he was artistic director. Antigone in the Amazon is the third part in this trilogy.
All three works bear the recognisable signature of the director, who lucidly combines a classical text with concrete contemporary events (the war in Iraq, the exploitation of migrant workers and a massacre in Brazil). Rau interweaves dramatic re-enactment with Brechtian commentary on the events on stage. He films excerpts from relevant locations – from Mosul, from the Amazon – in order to incorporate them into his stage performance and always works with local actors and activists as well as the company of actors from Ghent. Reality and fiction merge into an activist amalgam.
In the case of Antigone in the Amazon, Rau takes as his central event the s Eldorado do Carajás massacre in which the Brazilian military police opened fire on thousands of members of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in 1996, who were peacefully protesting on the motorway for the right to cultivate unused land. They were demanding the appropriation of unused private land, which is permitted under the Brazilian constitution. The police shot 19 people dead and injured 69 others.
Rau travelled to the scene of the massacre in the state of Pará with the idea of combining the real massacre with a mythical one, the war waged by the brothers Polynices and Eteocles for supremacy over the Theban polis which precedes the plot of Sophocles’ Antigone. Two sufferings, two battles, two punishments and two injustices. The performance combines moments of live action with video footage filmed in Brazil. These two elements of the show combine – and communicate with each other. On stage covered in red dirt, two Flemish actors (Sara De Bosschere and Arne De Tremerie) and two Brazilian actors (Frederico Araujo and Pablo Casellai) actors perform while video projection takes place on three moving screens. They often interact with these screens.
The actors constantly switch between roles – from playing themselves to portraying real and dramatic characters to taking on the role of the narrator. Rau masterfully controls the narrative, which is told through several communicative models. Documentary and literary information is clearly presented through the constant presence of warm and soothing music played live by Pablo Casella. Everything is presented slowly, so that special attention is paid to each spoken word and gesture. However, this slow pace becomes a barrier after a while, leading to attention fatigue.
The structure itself also provokes many questions, chief among them being: what is the purpose of the complicated combination of history and myth, theatre and cinema? Although the two levels of the story can be followed without much difficulty, it is hard to know what the director’s aim was in combining them.
If it was to present information about the massacre, why would he focus so much on fictional characters in the documentary footage? If the aim was to elevate the brutal events in Brazil with a symbolic narrative of perhaps the most important tragedy in European literature, does this mean that the massacre itself is not impactful enough without this Western fictional frame? If so, does is this a case of a Western white saviour coming to preach to non-Western cultures? Although this is certainly not the author’s intention, the concept can certainly be read in this way.
Hegel took the view that, in Sophocles’ play, Antigone and Creon represent two opposing but legitimate principles. We must bear in mind that the readings of this tragedy are very different and that this can lead to irreconcilable conclusions when analysed in a nuanced way.
Rau takes a simplistic view of the play. For him, Antigone is a hero and Creon a villain. The simplified interpretation of the tragedy gives a black and white, almost Hollywood-like picture of the world. We cannot help but wonder where this performance is taking us? Is it just the fact that that the events of the play resemble the crimes in Brazil? If so, this presents us with the problematic idea of using a massacre as a means of asserting the universality of a play.
Just as he did in Orestes in Mosul, Rau shows a tendency to formally complicate fairly clear ideas. It’s hard not to agree with the political views he advocates, but they are conveyed much more effectively when they are presented explicitly in the form of a short and concise speech than when you have to fight your way through the impenetrable theatrical layers to get there.
Credits:
Text: Milo Rau & ensemble //Dramaturgy: Giacomo Bisordi
Cast: Frederico Araujo, Sara De Bosschere, Pablo Casella, Arne De Tremerie
On Screen: Kay Sara, Gracinha Donato, Célia Maracajà, choir of militants of Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra (MST), Ailton Krenak
For more information, visit: festival.bitef.rs
Andrej Čanji is a theatre critic and theatrologist based in Belgrade.
