Ganesh Versus the Third Reich – Back to Back Theatre

Overview

The 2014 season at Carriageworks will include the Sydney debut of Back to Back Theatre's Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, an internationally acclaimed production that won, amongst others prizes, the 2012 Helpmann Award for Best Play.

Audiences are taken on a journey with Ganesh, the Hindu god, travelling through Nazi Germany to try to reclaim the swastika, an ancient Hindu symbol. Alongside this primary narrative swims a second — that of the actors themselves feeling the responsibility of tackling so weighty a subject, whilst struggling under the demands of an unreasonable director.

As a show that the Age called "courageous, confronting, intelligent and magisterially considered theatre", Ganesh Versus the Third Reich will get you thinking about history, theatre and the connection between the two. What right does art have to draw on the darkest chapters of history? And when it does, in exactly whose creative hands should it be placed?

Back to Back Theatre is a Geelong-based company founded in 1987, made up of a unique ensemble of five actors with perceived intellectual disabilities. Together they devise and create award-winning contemporary theatre that explores powerful social and political issues, including this year's much-acclaimed Sydney Theatre Company show, Super Discount.