The Waste Land

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Thursday, February 17th, 2022
17,18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25: 8pm 19, 26: 2pm

T.S. Eliot’s landmark modernist poem will be adapted for the stage by director and physical theatre maker Conrad Alexandrowicz, who teaches movement for actors in the department.

Published in 1922, The Waste Land bears witness to the physical and emotional devastation caused by the First World War and the global influenza pandemic. The poem evolves over five cryptically titled sections that use rapidly shifting images, multiple voices and vignettes to arrive at a kind of eulogy for social values now erased by the twin catastrophes of war and disease. But Eliot’s work, while steeped in disillusionment, also points to humanity’s hope for redemption. The text fuses different literary forms and traditions, referencing works from the Bible to Hindu and Buddhist texts, Shakespeare and the Arthurian legend of the Holy Grail. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948, Eliot is considered one of the most daring innovators of 20th century poetry.