Award-winning, international touring company Complicité’s new production Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, conceived and directed by their Artistic Director and Co-Founder Simon McBurney, comes to Salford next month. The piece is based on Nobel Prize-Winner Olga Tokarczuk’s genre-defying novel of the same name.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead runs at The Lowry from Tuesday 25th to Saturday 29th April, as part of its International tour – currently playing at The Barbican Centre, London.
The ensemble cast features long standing Complicité collaborators, alongside new performers working with the company for the very first time and includes Thomas Arnold, Johannes Flaschberger, Amanda Hadingue, Kathryn Hunter, Kiren Kebaili-Dwyer, Weronika Maria, Tim McMullan, César Sarachu, Sophie Steer and Alexander Uzoka.
Regarded as an eccentric outsider, the story unfolds through the eyes of Janina, a former engineer, environmentalist, devoted astrologer and enthusiastic translator of William Blake, veering between the comedic and macabre. Her actions question the patriarchal world which surrounds her, our deeper human intentions and the value placed on the lives of animals in contrast to our own.
The story begins in the depths of winter in a small community on a remote mountainside, as men from the local hunting club begin to die in mysterious circumstances. Janina Duszejko has her suspicions. She has been watching the animals with whom the community shares their isolated, rural home, and she believes they are acting strangely…
Tokarczuk’s novel caused a seismic reaction in her native Poland due to its defiant attack on authoritarian structures, with right-wing press branding the writer an ‘eco-terrorist’ and national traitor.
This playful, anarchic noir was translated into English in 2018 by Antonia Lloyd-Jones for Fitzcarraldo Editions. It is the first English language stage adaptation of the novel and the first time Tokarczuk’s work has been adapted for the UK stage.
A philosophical and poetic murder mystery, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a rallying cry for nature and a love-letter to the poetry of Blake. At its heart it is a playful and profound work that asks us to consider what it means to live in harmony with the world around us, our place in the ecosystem, and the perilous consequences we all face if our connection to the natural world is lost.
Event Listing
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Tuesday 25th to Saturday 29th April
Tues – Sat 7.30pm, Weds & Sat 2pm
Audio Described Wed 7.30pm (Touch Tour 6pm), Captioned Sat 2pm, Captions (Polish) Sat 7.30pm
Age Guidance 12+
Running Time approx. 3 hours including an interval
https://thelowry.com/whats-on/
