Works And Days theatre review: Epic, wordless and audacious
Belgian theatre company FC Bergman transforms Hesiod’s play into a vast, playful spectacle of farming, machines and human imagination
In a city teeming with cash-strapped shows and thousands of artists battling to fill tiny rooms with big ideas, there’s something about FC Bergman’s production of Works And Days that feels absolutely audacious. Huge in scale, huge in cast, huge in ideas, but also hugely playful, human, funny and genuinely jaw-dropping, it’s a lesson in the power of where the human imagination (backed by a suitable budget) can take us.
It’s loosely based on an Ancient Greek poem written by Hesiod, in which he tells his brother how to run his farm. Admittedly, this does not feel like the most promising start but hold onto your oxen because Belgian theatre company FC Bergman uses this source material to pull out a creation myth. It’s the story of human production, starting with co-operative agrarian life in small communities to the birth of the great machines and the onset of global export and capitalism. Still not selling it? OK, how about this: on stage, in no particular order, you will find a real-life chicken, a real-life plough digging up the stage, a real-life band, a real-life house building scenario, real-life rain and real-life rubber pineapples (still working that one out).
The imagination on display is extraordinary: a man wrapped in a tarp becomes an enormous creature, a child is born from a wrapped-up bundle strapped to a woman’s belly, the stage is splintered apart and rebuilt and a mad clacking nightmare of wooden slatted tree shapes becomes a festival. It’s joyful too, so playful, and just so exciting to watch. It’s also completely wordless: we’re not there to watch people emoting, we’re there to watch people building, hunting, eating, celebrating, living and dying.
Works And Days is theatre of ideas, the epitome of ‘yes, and’ thinking. You could absolutely sit back and watch it unfold in front of you without any deep engagement in the broader themes. But that’s where it gets even cleverer, because our brains absorb the stunning visual cues in front of us and then, days later, we put something together or find something new in it, or feel inspired to make something with our hands. Rubber pineapples and all, Works And Days is a stunning spectacle that’s full of heart and a complete triumph.
Works And Days concluded at the Dunstan Playhouse on March 8; picture: Kurt Van der Elst.