War and Peace
GOB SQUAD
18—30 October
PAST EVENT
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
Between humour and poignancy, between exuberance and despondence.
The hottest outfit in Berlin’s performance scene takes on one of literature’s most famously unread novels, but this book club might come with a body count.
Notorious theatre renegades Gob Squad (Before Your Very Eyes, 2012 Melbourne Festival) make live video performances that unsettle the lines between the prepared and the improvised, performer and bystander, fiction and life. Here they set their sights on Tolstoy’s gargantuan opus War and Peace, only to discover that neither war nor peace are coming without a fight.
A never-ending parade of characters dance, dine and duel while performers prepare for scenes as if going into battle, all in order to reframe Tolstoy’s central inquiry: can we live a moral life in an imperfect world? Are our peaceful lives themselves a kind of warfare?
ARTIST TALK
TUE 25 OCTOBER 6.30PM, post-show FREE
Stay after the show for an artist talk with the cast and creative team.
GOB SQUAD ARTIST WORKSHOP
Explore the company’s approach to text, video and action in the creation of touching, humorous and confessional performance works that mix reality with fiction. Find out more →
War and Peace is a production by Gob Squad and Münchner Kammerspiele. In coproduction with Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin, Schauspiel Leipzig, Konfrontacje Teatralne Festival Lublin, Lancaster Arts at Lancaster University, Malthouse Theatre and Melbourne Festival, Gessnerallee Zürich, 24 // Nottingham Playhouse and Teatro Stabile di Torino—National Theatre.
IMAGE | David Baltzer / bildbuehne.de
Thoroughly entertaining, full of irony and intelligence.
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Presented with Malthouse Theatre