GREAT CITIES UNDER THE MOON MITEM 12
ODIN TEATRET
The Trilogy of the Innocent
The Innocence of War and of Its Victimsga
The Trilogy of the Innocent
The Innocence of War and of Its Victimsga
Innocent is a luminous word. We don’t feel guilty because we are ware that guilt is a reaction of our conscience. And this reaction is not automatically associated with a misdeed that we may have committed considering it a legitimate defence. Let’s look at the face of war: that of a tiger. The tiger tears a child to pieces. This is obviously a tragedy, but it doesn’t tarnish the innocence of the tiger. Innocence does not take damage into account, it demands only purity of intentions. For those fighting in a war, innocence coincides with a respect for their role within the mechanisms of a struggle whose purpose is to exterminate the adversary. We don’t usually associate the word innocent with war, but with its victims, those who don’t commit outrages and destruction. We think of orphans, widows, women who experience the innocence of war on their bodies. Odin Teatret’s trilogy speaks of the many forms of innocence, asking the question: are we all, perhaps, innocent?
Trilogy - Second landscape: the present (2010-2018)
Changing countries more often than shoes
The moon observes and glides over the burning cities below, from the metropolises of Europe to those of Asia Minor, from Hiroshima to Halle, from Imperial China to Alabama. Her voice is mocking or amazed, indifferent or merciful, cold or incandescent. Her compassion knows no melancholy, no solace. „Great Cities under the Moon emerged by accident in 2000 from a barter between our theatre and a group of patients from a psychiatric hospital in Bielefeld, Germany. It was our intention to play this performance only once, but instead it became part of our repertoire. It describes with serenity scenes of exile, abuse and massacre from the History of our time, accompanied by songs of poets dear to us: Bertolt Brecht, Jens Bjørneboe, Ezra Pound, Li Po.” (Eugenio Barba)