Are we not drawn o
nward to new erA

Just like its title, this performance is a palindrome: you can read it forwards or backwards. The production hinges on a man-made ‘point of no return’: initially somewhat unclear, we hit a turning point with enchanting sophistication and a surprising shift in meaning. While the performance is entertaining and structurally innovative, its subject matter is hugely serious. It reflects on climate change, waste culture and the ever-growing destruction of nature and, with all that in mind, asks if humanity can still be saved. Are we in the 11^th hour already?

Flemish collective Ontroerend Goed never fails to impress with its extraordinary ingenuity, devising surprising and impressive evenings at the theatre. This award-winning production is a clever visual metaphor: it traces the process in which people approach either their demise or their salvation, with a hopeful wink to an optimistic future.

Guest Performance Ontroerend Goed Belgien

A Coproduction with: Spectra, Kunstencentrum Vooruit Gent, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Adelaide Festival & Richard Jordan Productions

In English with German and English Subtitles

Duration 1:10h 

1st and 2nd February 2022, Thalia Gauss

The performance on 1st February will be followed by a Q&A with Charlotte De Bruyne (actress), chaired by Falk Schreiber (Free Journalist) as well as a premiere party with the audience

Press reviews

“This is one of the most beautiful, most intelligent and committed performances Ontroerend Goed has ever made, on the boundary of visual art and theatre, poetry and politics. The piece looks marvelous (but sounds brutally inaccessible) during the first twenty minutes. These, however, are necessary to enable the masterful twist. Only then the performance turns into a clear, miraculous statement about how we threaten to destroy ourselves and our world.”
- Els Van Steenberghe, Knack

“Created with charming, almost childlike, simplicity, the skill of the performers and those who conceived the piece cannot be applauded too highly.”
- Simon Parker, Western Morning News

“ In Are we not drawn onward to new erA Ontroerend Goed shows the eternal human struggle to do good, despite shortcomings. For as longs as we are still here.”
- Louise de Koning,  Theaterkrant.nl

“Are we not drawn onward to new erA is a cleverly staged, visually sumptuous dream – technically, a fantastic achievement, and artistically, a truly beautiful show full of pensive sadness.”
- Dorothy Max Prior, Total Theatre Magazine

“An admonitory piece about climate change that has a palindromic title and structure to match. And it speaks an initially indecipherable language that makes complete sense by the time the show has come to its bleak but beautiful end. After seeing this, you may never want to hold a plastic bag again.”
- Matt Wolf, New York Times