Articles

Antigone in the Amazon and šxʷʔam̓ət (home): A Critical Comparison of Two Anti-Colonial (?) Plays

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Abstract

This article compares two pieces of theatre that both focus on Indigenous oppression and resistance: Milo Rau’s Antigone in the Amazon, based in Brazil, and David Diamond’s šxʷʔam̓ət (home), based in Canada. While both productions aim to educate about, and resist, ongoing colonial violence, they are remarkably different in terms of process and product. šxʷʔam̓ət (home) used a collective creation process, allowing actors to generate stories that resonated with them, and was performed in Canada to Canadian – settler and Indigenous – audiences; Antigone in the Amazon was created and performed predominantly by Belgian actors, in collaboration with members of MST – Latin America’s largest protest movement – and has never been performed in Brazil. I draw on World Systems Analysis and Dependency Theory – two theories from economics and political science – to argue that Rau re-creates the colonial violence and neoliberalism that he claims to be resisting with the production.  

Keywords: Milo Rau, David Diamond, Dependency Theory, World Systems Analysis, Neocolonialism

How to Cite:

Courtney, T., (2025) “Antigone in the Amazon and šxʷʔam̓ət (home): A Critical Comparison of Two Anti-Colonial (?) Plays”, Documenta 43(1): 5, 141–158. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/documenta.93786