Belgian theatre collective FC Bergman’s take on “the crisis of modernity” in this show, which travels from the ancient world to mechanisation, is nothing if not wild. The boards of the stage are dug up with a plough at the start – a sign of things to come. A chicken is bashed in a sack as part of a pagan sacrifice (the real chicken remains unharmed), a naked man emerges from within an animal’s carcass and there is an apocalyptic landscape of erupting pineapples.
It’s wacky, but stays just on the right side of reckless. Directed by Stef Aerts, Joé Agemans, Thomas Verstraeten and Marie Vinck, and part of the Edinburgh international festival, this is a wordless piece, based on muscular movement and stunning live music composed by Joachim Badenhorst and Sean Carpio. The arresting scenes mark the arc of human progress, from the taking up of tools onwards. When the industrial age dawns, a steam engine is shown with human limbs wrapped around it, as if they are extensions of the machine.
The title refers to a poem by Hesiod on agrarian culture, for what that’s worth, but the narrative stays oblique. Yet you feel the changing mood. There are revels and fertility rites when actors’ trousers are unbuttoned, skirts raised. One couple literally roll in a sack. Spiritual ceremonies are enacted, too, and spinning around fire.
There is a construction phase, with nature tamed and a chorus of hammers on wood, a storm of sawdust. A house-like structure is erected from this industriousness. Civilisation arrives as animals are gutted, with fluttering red scarves standing in for blood and viscera. Performers, including Aerts, Agemans, Verstraeten and Vinck, plus Susan De Ceuster, Geert Goossens, Fumiyo Ikeda and Maryam Sserwamukoko, are as physical as dancers.
There is an almost constant shaking, pounding, swirling on stage, and beauty, too, in some of the scenes, but it is invariably interrupted by savagery – a large animal, maybe an elephant, is eviscerated and strung up – or a violent sound.
The sonic effects are enthralling, with instruments used in original ways: two flutes taped together, a table harp and saxophone that sounds like a didgeridoo, six Tibetan singing bowls fused as one and played with a bow and mallet … The music is inspired by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, but seems so much stranger. The lighting, by Aerts, Agemans and Ken Hioco, is magnificent, too, with swarms of blackness and columns of light.
Is this theatre, installation or dance? Who knows. As indefinable as it may be, it arrests. AI raises its head in the final moments. It is funny but unnerving. The endpoint of progress, it seems, is arriving.