Complicité, under the artistic direction of Simon McBurney, has given international audiences so much pleasure over many years. His latest touring production is based on Nobel Prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk’s novel which was published in 2009.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is part fable, part murder mystery, part manifesto about climate change and eco-terrorism.
“What does it mean to be human and what does it mean to be animal, and can we separate the two? Why is the killing of animals sport and that of humans murder?” asks Tokarczuk.
Brutal and gruesome murders are taking place in an isolated rural community near the Czech-Polish border during a cold bleak winter. The victims are members of a hunting club.
Janine Duszejko, a 65-year-old woman, who tries to co-exist in harmony with the world around her, is passionate about animal rights. She is convinced the murders have been committed by animals as an act of revenge for the slaughter of wild life.
Janine is devoted to astrology and loves translating William Blake. (The title of the play is drawn from Blake’s poem, Proverbs of Hell.) Janine is both sane and mad. The role is shared between Kathryn Hunter and Amanda Hadingue. I saw Hadingue at the performance I attended.
Hadingue stands in front of a microphone for most of the three hours and delivers a long monologue, a mixture of narration and rant, a tour de force; but she is never the eccentric and weird old ugly witch which the community says she is.
Following its run at the Barbican, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead will tour, visiting Nottingham, Coventry and Salford in April. You can find out more by visiting the website by following this link.
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