Death in Venice: Willem Dafoe thrills theatre biennale with adventurous shows about ghosts and rebirth

From a Noh Othello that puts Desdemona centre stage to a requiem for a family killed in the Rwandan genocide, the theatre at this year’s festival gives voice to the marginalised

When Willem Dafoe took over at the creative helm of the Venice theatre biennale last year, he shaped the programme around his own passions. Dafoe selected experimental theatre companies that had influenced him as a young actor and took to the stage for an arcane and rather mannered two-hander by Richard Foreman which involved the declaiming of non-sequitur notes from a series of index cards. It all seemed less avant garde, more nostalgic.

This year, the 54th edition, is thankfully very different. Dafoe’s programme is broad and outward looking, with genuine cultural range and an interesting fusion of theatrical traditions. The lineup stretches from Europe to Indonesia (Yusril Katil’s Under the Volcano, among other productions) and India (Sharmila Biswas’s Mischief Dance). There is a flamboyant hybridity to shows such as Satoshi Miyagi’s Mugen Noh Othello, which melds Noh with Shakespeare, and Christos Stergioglou and Alex Drakos Ktistakis’ Cries, which combines physical theatre with musical storytelling, and contemporary themes with ancient Greek drama.