Sydney Reviews

Photo – Jeff Busby

It is not hard to see why critical accolades and prizes have been heaped on Back to Back Theatre’s Ganesh Versus The Third Reich. There is brilliance in this show. There are moments I felt physically, moments like punches, moments of numbness. But I also found it kind of frustrating.

It should be noted that this frustration is not necessarily a bad thing. I’m pretty sure at least some of it was deliberately engendered (though I don’t want to indulge in a debate about what was and was not intended by the artists). There were scenes that were too long and full of circular arguments that were deeply irritating, but that was a big part of the point. I think what I found most frustrating was that I wanted the puzzle pieces to fit together a bit more neatly than they did. But again, that’s part of the point: the issues this show deals with are complicated and messy and do not fit together neatly, no matter how much we try to make them.

Ganesh Versus The Third Reich is a very clever, sophisticated meditation on issues of cultural appropriation. There are two separate narratives going on. In one, the elephant-headed Indian god Ganesh, the god of overcoming obstacles, must reclaim the sacred Sanskrit symbol of the swastika, which has been appropriated by the Third Reich, its meaning changed and perverted. In the other, a group of actors with intellectual disabilities are attempting to put on this play about Ganesh and the Third Reich, led by a non-disabled director attempting to manipulate the show into something else and to claim their narratives as his own.

This is quite a tidy summation, but it is not a tidy play (by design, I suspect). The lines between the two narratives are deliberately and increasingly blurred, life informing art and art becoming life. And then there is the incredibly untidy issue raised by one of the actors over the politics of appropriating Hindu gods and the Holocaust…

The show doesn’t offer any answers to the problems of appropriation – which is frustrating, but also as it should be. I’m glad there were no simple solutions to this massive cultural problem presented, and also deeply annoyed that there aren’t any available. I did think this problem was used as a meta-theatrical conceit a bit too much – does raising the fact that it’s an issue make the fact that you’re doing it any less of an issue? There is so much to chew on here, and I suspect I’m going to be mulling over this show for quite some time.

I would have loved to see more of the Ganesh plotline. I suspect that this was largely because this plot made sense. It was a linear story, a hero overcoming a villain and reclaiming the MacGuffin that had been stolen, while picking up a plucky sidekick along the way. That’s simple. That’s satisfying. The god of overcoming obstacles overcomes obstacles and all is as it should be. The meta level, however, provides the meat of the show, and it does not offer that level of satisfaction. There is not much that many of the five cast agree on, especially re issues of interpretation and appropriation. There is one scene near the end of the show where a schism that cannot be breached arises, and this scene is so chilling it is viscerally terrifying. And yet it’s not as simple as hero and villain, as the righteous god overcoming Hitler and the Third Reich, even when the non-disabled director is overtly aligned with Dr Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who visited so many horrors on disabled people in the name of scientific progress. It’s hard to even identify the exact obstacle that needs to be overcome. It’s complex and messy and incredibly frustrating, for characters and audience.

This is not a satisfying show. It does not provide answers. But it is brilliant. It made me want more, even though I can’t even put my finger on what more might look like. Reading the program notes, I was a bit sceptical about the notion that you could discuss cultural appropriation by performing it, and I’m still not sure what I think about that. But there’s a reason Ganesh Versus The Third Reich has toured all over the world and won, like, a million awards. There is something in this show that cannot be ignored.


Carriageworks presents a production by Back to Back Theatre
Ganesh Versus the Third Reich

Venue: Carriageworks | 245 Wilson Street, Redfern, Sydney
Dates: 12 – 15 March 2014
Tickets: $35
Bookings: www.carriageworks.com.au