Play examines cultural appropriation and the representation of others
If there were an award for intriguing theatrical titles Theatre Junction’s current offering the Canadian première of Ganesh Versus the Third Reich would most certainly be in the running.
Performed by a mixed-abilities cast from Australia’s Back to Back Theatre Ganesh Versus the Third Reich involves two interwoven narratives.
The first features the elephant-headed Indian deity Ganesh the god of overcoming obstacles. He comes to Earth during the Second World War to reclaim the swastika (an ancient Hindu symbol) from Nazi Germany.
Bruce Gladwin Back to Back Theatre’s artistic director says the second narrative — a sort of play-within-a-play — involves the actors and director who are fighting moral and ethical dilemmas regarding the presentation of the first narrative. Some of those “dilemmas” include issues of cultural appropriation and determining who has the right to speak on behalf of someone else.
“When we first came up with the idea we felt we had no right to tell the story…. As a small theatre company in regional Australia there is quite a huge geographical divide between us and Europe and there’s the historical divide and also a spiritual divide” says Gladwin.
However he adds instead of abandoning the concept the company decided to explore that cultural hesitancy in the play they created.
The initial idea for Ganesh Versus the Third Reich was birthed organically. One of the company’s actors was “obsessed with Ganesh.”
“She would draw maybe 30 or 40 drawings of Ganesh each day” explains Gladwin.
At the same time company members were engaging in theatrical exercises that involved lowering one’s voice. From this exercise another actor created a Nazi character.
With these two different characters at his fingertips Gladwin headed to the computer.
“In many ways the show is a result of Google. We Googled both Nazi and Ganesh and found a number of websites that are dedicated to the idea that the Nazis appropriated the swastika from India” he says.
Hitler and Josef Mengele — Auschwitz’s infamous “Angel of Death” — also appear as characters in the show. Mengele was known to perform experimental and investigative surgery on people who were “variations” of the human form including twins and people with disabilities.
While Gladwin says the cast is not trying to make a specific comment on disability he does say the cast defies the historically negative stereotypes associated with disability.
“At some point in the work there is a sense of consciousness that we are watching a group of people who at one point were considered to be subhuman. And we are watching them perform a work not only in their first language which is English but also in German and Sanskrit. It’s an incredibly complex piece of theatre being presented by this group of people who had the label of intellectually disabled” he says.
The play also explores power relationships in society and the potential they create for abuse.
“Hitler and Nazi Germany parallel the relationship between director and actors” says Gladwin though he adds that the manipulation of power in the latter category comes in a much more subtle form.
However this relationship doesn’t only occur between actors and director. “It could very well be a psychologist and client or a doctor and a patient or a teacher and a student” he adds.
“If there is any commentary it is that abuse of power happens all the time. We all have to take responsibility to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
When all is said and done however Gladwin says the company’s ultimate aim with Ganesh Versus the Third Reich is “to make theatre that is a great work of art.”
