"Unflinching theatre art, full, inventive, straight to the… | NTGent
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"Unflinching theatre art, full, inventive, straight to the heart"

| 23 May 2023
Milo Rau and NTGent's new play, starring the Brazilian movement MST, has been extremely well received in Amsterdam at the start of its European tour. The Dutch press calls 'Antigone in the Amazon' "nothing short of impressive".

"Whereas previously in performances such as La Reprise and Familie (about the collective suicide of a family) Rau mainly recorded from a distance, here he goes into it full and almost unbearable," writes Volkskrant (⭐⭐⭐⭐). "The theatre-maker then becomes an activist himself, keen to denounce injustice head-on."

"The result is nothing short of impressive," writes experienced critic Hein Janssen. "It is much, full, inventive, at times radically political and activist theatre, and finally quite depressing (...) Rau has brought the Greek resistance fighter of the past to the present, and turned it into uncompromising theatre art."

NRC Handelsblad also awards Antigone in the Amazon four stars out of five: "This is to be praised in Rau: how inescapably he turns his gaze to contemporary injustice," the newspaper writes.

"When theatre and action flow together, as in the singing of the indigenous choir during the re-enactment", the performance is at its best, says NRC Handelsblad. "The words, the voices, go straight to the heart."

"The performance unrolls in the jumping between fiction and reality, from stage with actors to the inhabitants of the Amazon on screen," writes Theaterkrant.nl. "In the smooth editing of video recordings (Moritz von Dungern et al), locations and stories blend into one. It is theatre that brings worlds together (...) The theatre makers have the intention, but it is also in the performance the landless who are the real battle. The bereaved who form the chorus: they carve their revolt into your soul with their singing."

With closed eyes, you can see whomever you’d like Until it holds from the inside Beyond madness, tenderness awaits There's all that future, still Only humans can fantasise