Brecht’s First Play is jointly created by Beijing Repertory Theater together with co-artistic directors Ben Kidd and Bush Moukarzel of the Irish company Dead Centre. Deconstructing Brecht’s early play Baal through cross-cultural lens, the production adopts a dual narrative in which live performance is set alongside real-time video, placing its protagonist in a theatrical state of being ‘cancelled’ and re-examining the interaction between a classic text and contemporary society. Reflecting on questions such as problematic figures and cancel culture, it uses playful yet powerful stage language to explore the constantly shifting relationships between spectatorship, performance and reality.
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