Larisa Faber’s The Land We Shared Makes UK Debut
The Land We Shared, a deeply personal new show about what we leave behind by award-winning Luxembourg performance-maker Larisa Faber (stark bollock naked, Assembly Roxy;340x, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Germany) will make its UK premiere. Following its international run, the show uniquely blends documentary theatre and live music to uncover the complex layers of grief and historical memory. The show unpacks how the long shadow of Romania’s communist dictatorship continues to shape lives across generations.
In this semi-autobiographical, surrealist puzzle, Larisa uses her grandmother’s burial as a catalyst to examine how we can right the wrongs of the past. Presented in three distinct chapters which look at the relationship between a father, daughter and grandmother,The Land We Sharedtells the story scored by a unique blend of folk music, heavy drumbeats and visceral soundscape. Drawing on her heritage, Faber takes the audience on a funny and eclectic journey through Romania’s turbulent history, traditions and how the toxicity of the communist regime has permeated in the modern day.
Growing up in the former communist states Faber was largely raised by her grandmother, known for making cabbage rolls. When she died, her burial site was far from what she had planned: miles from the land she came from, with the plot beside her parents’ still lying empty. Spanning generations, the play explores resistance and complicity under dictatorship, peeling back the layers of a family’s history through the striking symbol of a giant cabbage.
The Land We Shared will star Kristin Winters (Scheherazade,Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin;Lovefool,National Theatre Luxembourg;Hamlet,Theatre Royal Bath) as Little L alongside Ovidiu Mihăiță (Hamlet, Ryma, Alba Iulia Romania; Haos, Dom Omladie, Zrejnanin Serbia) as Father. Ruslana Khazipova, a core member of the acclaimed genre-defying Ukrainian band Dakh Daughters will play Silvia.
Writer and director Larisa Faber comments,This is a tender coming-of-age story about grief in times of historical amnesia. With a massive cabbage and an ode to cabbage rolls. Surreal, mischievous, and fun in the way only radioactive Chernobyl cabbage rolls at dinner can be. In truth, I wrote the show for the “other Europe”, the one once hidden behind the Iron Curtain. A place still stewing in its recent past, often misunderstood, sometimes forgotten, always explosive
Previous praise forThe Land We Shared:
A must-see personal, yet universal story– Luxembourg Times
Main image courtesy of The Land We Shared
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