Complicité cast in rehearsals for three week run at Bristol Old Vic

Now in its 40th year, internationally renowned and multi-award-winning touring theatre company Complicité continues to make work that blurs boundaries between art forms.

From theatre and dance to opera, radio to film, or installation to interactive arts – all can be “sites for the collective art of imagination”.

Under the direction of artistic director and co-founder Simon McBurney, the company has been focused in recent years on delivering work that highlights the climate emergency, as well as the role that art can play in activism.

In rehearsal for Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Bristol Old Vic (2022) – photo: Camilla Adams

Described as “a philosophical and poetic murder mystery,” “a love-letter to the poetry of William Blake” and “a rallying cry for nature”, its latest work is an adaptation of a novel by Nobel Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk that – on publication – met with accusations of eco-terrorism from right-wing press circles in her native Poland.

In a world premiere for Bristol Old Vic, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead opens for a three week run on January 19, before touring for the first half of 2023, with dates in Oxford, London, Nottingham, Coventry, Salford, Luxembourg and Paris.

Photo: Camilla Adams

The show is a sometimes comedic, always confrontational work about the perils of disrupting the natural ecological order in which we must live.

A major pan-European co-production, it is based on the translation of the novel into English by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, and also represents the first time that Tokarczuk’s work has been adapted for the UK stage.

Photo: Camilla Adams

McBurney’s sizeable creative team on the project includes Rae Smith as set and costume designer, Paule Constable as lighting designer, Christopher Shutt as sound designer, Dick Straker as video designer and Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre and Laurence Cook as dramaturgs, with additional direction from Kirsty Housley, William Fricker as design assistant, Lucia Sanchez as lighting associate and Ella Walhstrӧm as sound associate.

The ensemble cast includes several long-standing Complicité collaborators, along with some actors new to the company. It is led by Kathryn Hunter as the protagonist, Janina Duszejko, who believes that she may have answers to the mystery surrounding a series of deaths within her isolated, rural community.

Photo: Camilla Adams

She is joined by Thomas Arnold, Johannes Flaschberger, Amanda Hadingue, Kiren Kebaili-Dwyer, Weronika Maria, Tim McMullan, César Sarachu, Sophie Steer and Alexander Uzoka.

“Olga Tokarczuk’s savage, funny and madly beautiful Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is being brought to the stage by Complicité with a multi-national ensemble made up of long-term collaborators such as César Sarachu (Street of Crocodiles, Master and Margarita), Tim McMullan (Lucie Cabrol, Mnemonic, Master and Margarita), Johannes Flaschberger (Lucie Cabrol, Foe, Mnemonic, Measure for Measure and Master and Margarita) and a new generation of exceptional actors,” says McBurney.

Artwork: Patryk Hardziej

“We are particularly thrilled and delighted to announce that leading the company, in the role of protagonist Janina, is Kathryn Hunter.

“But we cannot, nor would we want to, avoid declaring that we are also making this piece in a time of deep mourning. Following the death of my comrade, compagnero and brother in arms Marcello Magni – co-founder of Complicité and Kathryn’s beloved husband – Kathryn and I feel it is a profound, beautiful and healing act to come together to create a piece of theatre inspired by this witty, poignant and ferocious work.”

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is at Bristol Old Vic from January 19-February 11 at 7.30pm, with additional 2.30pm matinee shows on Thursday and Saturday. Tickets are available at www.bristololdvic.org.uk.

The UK tour dates are on sale from www.complicite.org. Casting is subject to change for some performances and venues.

Main photo: Camilla Adams

Read more: Bristol Old Vic to host world premiere of new Complicité production in 2023

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