Drive your plow over the bones of the dead

Coby L, Year 11 writes…

GCSE Drama pupils took a trip on 23rd March to watch Complicité’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. Throughout my two years of GCSE Drama, I have attended various plays such as Blood Brothers,A Streetcar Named Desire, and Leopoldstadt, but this performance was by far the most unique production I have seen.

Located in London, Complicité is a well-known company that has been pushing the boundaries of theatre since 1983. They are famous for producing immersive and thought-provoking performances that merge text, music, projections, and physical acting to create ambiguous scenes. After the play, we were able to attend a Q&A session with the actors, who shared their experience of working at Complicité. They revealed that the play was continuously evolving as it did not have a fixed script, and that some scenes were even constructed on the day of the performance. This seemed insane given that our class spent months preparing for our acting exams on a twenty-minute extract.

The play was about an elderly woman, called Janina, who looked after people’s houses in Poland throughout the harsh winters. She lived in a remote region with only a few quirky neighbours and friend, then things took a turn for the worse when people began to be found dead. The play endeavoured to tackle problems of hunting and vegetarianism, which is particularly significant with our increasing of awareness for the environment, through the idea of animals fighting back and reclaiming their land. It also explored the idea of fate and horoscopes, which I found nteresting as I had previously thought of star signs as meaningless and nonsensical.

I found the design of the play was great as it had captivating lighting and sound, plus stunning projections that added details to the minimalistic set.

One of my favourite moments was when the three main characters were driving through a forest, and the projection of a snowy setting created a mesmerising effect that brought the stage to life. However, despite the impressive design, for the majority of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, the main character stood at the microphone and other actors would act out movements depicting what she was saying. There were some moments where she would interact with the people around her but these were not plentiful, so was hard to focus on the overall message.

Despite what I found to be an unengaging delivery of the story, it did manage to evoke questions about my omnivorous diet, as the play highlighted the immorality of killing and eating animals by portraying them as more intelligent and thoughtful than we currently perceive them as. Personally, I didn’t love the play, as I felt it had too many different sub plots that were ineffective.

However, I would recommend Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead to anyone interested in lighting design or philosophy.