Hope’s Insights on MADDADDAM

Our Artistic Director Shares Her Thoughts

Hope Muir

We look forward to welcoming you to Wayne McGregor’s MADDADDAM. It is my pleasure to provide some context for this breathtaking production. Inspired by Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel trilogy, this 2022 co-production with The Royal Ballet imagines a future shaped by environmental disaster, corporate power, greed and – against the odds – love. Rather than retelling the novels, MADDADDAM captures the atmosphere of Atwood’s world through movement, design, film, voice and an original score by Max Richter. 

  • Heather Ogden in MADDADDAM. Photo by Karolina Kuras.

    Heather Ogden in MADDADDAM. Photo by Karolina Kuras.

The experience unfolds in three acts:

Castaway

In the aftermath of a global pandemic called the Waterless Flood, a traumatised Snowman/Jimmy believes he is the last human alive. He has led the Crakers – a peaceful new race of hominids engineered by his one-time best friend Crake – into a newly depopulated world. He is haunted by memories of Crake and Oryx, Crake’s partner and the love of Jimmy’s life, who are now dead. Eventually other survivors join Jimmy in searching for a way forward.

  • Siphesihle November in MADDADDAM. Photo by Karolina Kuras.

    Siphesihle November in MADDADDAM. Photo by Karolina Kuras.

Extinctathon

Act II shows a game of extinction and survival inspired by the computer game Jimmy and Crake played as teenagers. Time scrolls forward and back as encounters between “Players” provide glimpses of life before the pandemic. Amidst it all, Crake has a vision of a better world and creates first the Crakers and then the BlyssPluss pill – a drug that induces euphoria but also contains the virus that will destroy humanity. Act II ends where Act I began. 

  • Christopher Gerty and Ben Rudisin in MADDADDAM.  Photo by Karolina Kuras.

Dawn

In the future, a harmonious new world is populated by evolved Crakers, the result of crossbreeding between Crake’s hominids and survivors of the pandemic. The Crakers honour their human ancestors by enacting fragments of their histories, which become a kind of scripture in which Oryx and Crake are deities.

  • Isaac Wright and Genevieve Penn Nabity in MADDADDAM. Photo by Karolina Kuras.

At its core, MADDADDAM is a work of storytelling, both in its themes and in how it expands what dance and live performance can be. Thank you for being part of it.

Warmly,

Hope Muir, Joan and Jerry Lozinski Artistic Director

MADDADDAM is Onstage June 13 – 21.

About MADDADDAM

Top Photo: Hope Muir. Photo by Ted Belton.