Adelaide Festival review: Works and Days
With Works and Days, Belgian theatre company FC Bergman set – and destroyed – the stage in an exceptional, in-motion illustration of what human progress means.
On a black and barren stage, a small group watch one of their own hammer and smash a hole in the floor, from which they all begin to pull and rip until there’s a cleared strip where they drop in an egg from a live chicken. They kill the chicken. They hang the chicken high on a post and a ritual ensues. They till and sow the strip, then, in simple grey blankets, actors become beasts of burden and the group rope them and breed them. When the blankets are removed we see human lovers. The woman becomes pregnant, the bloodied bag with the presumed chicken corpse inside lowered from the post and tied to her belly to show her belly’s growth. The couple hi five. The group then gather wood and erect a base structure. It’s their home. They stomp and dance in unison. They are working hard every single day, feeding themselves, sheltering themselves, creating community and family. No one has said a single word, nor will they for the entirety of the performance.
It’s no surprise Belgium’s experimental theatre collective FC Bergman has returned to Adelaide Festival after leaving audiences stunned with their highly original The Sheep Song back in 2023. This time the group, known for their studies of human struggle in the much larger and unforgiving natural world, bring us Works and Days, a remarkable commentary on how swiftly our use of the earth for humankind purposes turned to overuse of the earth, and how our link with the animals transmogrified into an obsession with engineering.
The title is taken from ancient Greek poet Hesiod’s Works and Days, in which Hesiod teaches his brother Perses about good farming techniques. This critically celebrated troupe goes further than the original farmer’s almanac by building image upon image, so that the wood we see at the beginning of the play has something important to say in the middle and at the end of the play, so that we don’t forget the slaughtered chicken in the play’s closing scene. (Note: the real chicken isn’t harmed.)
This is epic storytelling in frame and in artistry, dependent on physical theatre, the stage-as-earth significant in proving the ‘work’ of the title to be true toil. Because the performance is wordless, accent on the visual must speak loudly, which it does. In fact most every phase of the timeline presented is marked by an interpretation so graphically and conceptually phenomenal that it’s impossible to highlight any individual moment without ruining the surprise. And since the show really is a consistent series of surprises, each an instance of incredibly poetic imagery choreographed with beauty and intelligence, you wouldn’t want me too. Well, perhaps I’ll just say that the flash of steampunk Baroque we’re given in slow-motion representation of the Industrial Revolution is nothing short of extraordinary. (Further note: there’s a significant amount of nudity, but never for gratuitous purposes.)
FC Bergman are Stef Aerts, Joé Agemans, Thomas Verstraeten and Marie Vinck, who are four of the six remaining co-founders of the group. They are the conceivers and directors of the show, while Aerts and Vinck are joined by Maryam Sserwamukoko, Yorrith De Bakker, Gudrun Ghesquiere, Fumiyo Ikeda, Geert Goossens and Gloria Aerts on stage. Musical composition and live performance is credited to Joachim Badenhorst and Sean Carpio, who are forever in the metaphorical shadows, soundtracking the ‘days’ of the show’s title, though they are, in fact, well-lit by stage lights. Beginning with the pipes, the duo move through woodwind, strings, brass and, finally, electric. Sometimes the music is elementary, a gentle folk tune or festive one, and occasionally it’s frightening. No stone is left unturned with this troupe and their creation.
Works and Days is a 90-minute performance with no interval, which is entirely appropriate as you’d not want to interrupt such a visceral performance with a visit to the bar. In the time it takes to present the history of human production, you’ll be rooted to your seat, perhaps in the very way trees would appreciate remaining rooted in the ground, though fail at the hands of their destroyer. Works and Days is urgent testimony and, quite simply, phenomenal.
Works and Days played at Dunstan Playhouse from March 5 – 8 as part of Adelaide Festival
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
Free to share
This article may be shared online or in print under a Creative Commons licence