The starting point for this creation was a performance in the Amazon, in the state of Para (northern Brazil), where he and his team reconstructed in April a massacre in 1996 of activists of the Landless Peasants' Movement (MST) during a march for agrarian reform.

"There was a whole controversy on social networks in Brazil where we were accused of +fake news+, while we had reconstructed a massacre that had really happened," said the Swiss director, known for confronting theater and reality.

"Parliamentarians, generals in the army and agribusiness have called for a ban on the play in Brazil; But at that point, there was no room!" he remarks.

"Cathartic"

This performance is an integral part of the play that has already toured Europe and closes Milo Rau's trilogy of ancient myths, after Orestes in Mosul – where he transposes the tragedy of Aeschylus in northern Iraq devastated by war and the abuses of the Islamic State – and The New Gospel (created in a refugee camp in Italy).

The one who was declared persona non grata in Russia after the staging of a fictitious version of the trial of the protest and feminist group Pussy Riot and shocked Belgium by involving children in a play on the Dutroux case, says that Antigone in the Amazon is, of all her plays, "the one who had the most impact".

"It was moving, cathartic and a beautiful act of solidarity to show the suffering of these people," he said, referring to the landless peasants.

"If reality is shocking, why shouldn't art be? If we killed people in the Amazon, why not show it?" asks the outgoing director of the NTGent (in Ghent, Belgium) and designated director of the Vienna festival (Wiener Festwochen).

Swiss director Milo Rau during the re-enactment of the massacre of activists of the Landless Peasants' Movement in the state of Para on April 17, 2023. © NELSON ALMEIDA / AFP

The reconstruction of the massacre, which was filmed, will only be visible on video. If Sophocles' Antigone says no to her uncle Creon, the Amazonian Antigone says no to the destruction of the largest rainforest on the planet.

On screen, Indigenous activist Kay Sara plays Antigone alongside a chorus of survivors of the massacre and their families.

On stage, two actors from NTGent and two Brazilian actors explain the making of the play and the ethical issues behind this work, while embodying several characters from Sophocles' play.

Milo Rau also went further by launching a manifesto calling for a boycott of all products from buyers of Agropalma - a major palm oil producer - and other major agribusiness trusts.

The manifesto, called the "May 13 Declaration", was signed by Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux and intellectual Noam Chomsky.

"Our chocolate rabbits and our morning Nutella are causing human rights violations, land grabbing and destruction of the living world," the manifesto reads.

The piece will travel to Australia, Asia, North and South America.

Since its founding in the early 1980s, the Landless Peasants' Movement has fought for a more equitable distribution of agricultural land. Their methods are sometimes controversial, including occupations of land belonging to the state or farmers. Activists are also campaigning against monocultures or for the preservation of forests.

It's "a kind of utopia and I hope the play will help make it better known," Rau said.

© 2023 AFP