T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ comes alive on Bengaluru stage
Bengaluru: A century after T.S. Eliot’s landmark poem The Waste Land was published in 1922, the fractured verses are set to come alive on the Bengaluru stage in a new immersive production.
Presented by Jagriti Theatre in collaboration with META Theatre, Munich, the play will be staged from July 30 to August 2 at 7.30 p.m.
German director Axel Tangerding, founder of META Theatre and an architect by training, helms the production. Known for treating the stage as an environment rather than a backdrop, Tangerding has designed a stark white square stage covered in plaster that is “prepared anew for each performance” and broken down layer by layer during the show.
“It’s like looking beneath the surface,” Tangerding said. “In a time of fake news and fragmented realities, theatre must ask what is reliable, what comes down.”The performance features actor Nicole Kleine, with live music composed and performed by Ardhi Engl. Together, they transform Eliot’s complex, fragmented poem into a living, visual canvas.
The collaboration brings together Bengaluru’s Jagriti Theatre and Munich’s META Theatre to reinterpret one of modern literature’s most influential works for contemporary audiences.
