Belgian theatre company Ontroerend Goed brings together visual art, theatre, poetry and political protest in this multi award-winning performance art piece.

Read the title. Now read it back-to-front. Are we not drawn onward to new erA puts a unique spin on its exploration of humanity’s insatiable quest for progress that has dramatically changed the planet we live on. It puts to us the question, are our actions irreversible or can they be undone?

I have to be straight with you – this play is a slow burn, and more than its title is palindromic. It’s a strange but funky concept and I enjoyed the originality of it, but on opening night there was more than a murmur of confusion throughout the first half. We begin and end in an Eden-esque utopia, between which the performers destroy and rebuild their world. The cast speaks gobbledygook while they barrel deliberately towards eco-disaster in a series of overly precise, somewhat strange movements. They tear down trees, erect statues to human supremacy, pollute the ground with plastic and the air with smoke.

Around the mid-point of the play the uno-reverse card is dealt, and the play turns on its heels and the cast starts speaking English again as they consider if and how the world could be returned to its utopian roots, complete with a tree restored from the branches strewn over the ground.

The lack of comprehensible dialogue for much of the performance allows you to put your own interpretation of it. Let it wash over you as an idealistic vision for healing what we have torn asunder or pull every creative choice apart to find biblical references, lexical symbolism and buckets of social commentary. Is the garbled language a comment on how haphazardly we have acted to cause the environmental mess we’re in? Does the combination of realistic (plastic pollution) and more fanciful (tree restoration) imagery suggest ongoing hope for healing? Alternative, does is suggest that hope of ending climate change is fantasy?

A wacky, earnest call to action to a world poised on the brink of climate collapse.

Purchase your ticket to Are we not drawn onward here.

Rosé | Wine Pairing

Rosé tastes like the middle point between white and red wine, combining the freshness of a white wine varietal and the texture and body of a red.

Are we not drawn onward to new erA, Sydney Theatre Company & Sydney Festival | Tasting Notes

Aussie Season	16 to 20 Jan 2024, Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company. Produced by Ontrorend Goed in coproduction with Spectra, Kunstencentrum Vooruit Gent, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Adelaide Festival & Richard Jordan Productions Ltd.
Ticket $	$79-109
Writer	Ontroerend Goed
Director	Alexander Devriendt
Theatre Type & Genre	Activist drama
See it if you like	Performance art
Wine Pairing	Rosé
Criteria for Wine Pairing	Refreshing and textural