The theatre resembles a ship in many ways. Both are heterotopias, counter-spaces to reality and residues of imagination. In fact, the first technicians in court theatre were sailors. In medieval mystery plays, which stand at the crossroads of theatre and church, it was the shipbuilders themselves who staged the construction of the Ark on mobile stage wagons. The mystery of catastrophe could be rehearsed in the theatre against all probability.

Drawing on the biblical story of Noah’s Ark and its adaptation in medieval mystery plays, Arche Nova explores the moment when theatre is confronted with a real catastrophe. In this production, the stage simulates a life-saving ark. The audience is invited to participate as selected passengers in an imagined lockdown within the theatre as a mystical ship. Over the course of the evening, theatre and ark increasingly merge.

However, the production does not only grapple with the ark as an architecture of salvation, but also with catastrophe itself. Together, the crew of Arche Nova attempts to befriend it—deliberately and even playfully provoking disaster. The piece thus becomes a self-examination of theatre and its relationship to reality. Katastrophé in Greek means “turning point.” In reality, however, it signifies the end for many. Wars, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change—what does it mean to make theatre in the face of ongoing catastrophes? And what happens when theatre, as a place for testing alternative realities, is overtaken by reality itself?

In a collage of texts, vivid imagery, music, and rituals, a mystical and poetic evening unfolds, offering ways to approach catastrophe and to explore the ambivalence and brutal contradictions of rescue and safety. Ultimately, the performance culminates in the question of what role reality plays in theatre—before, during, and after the flood.