Nucleus of Darkness

The starting point for the play is Sven Lindqvist's report Exterminating All These Cattle, in which the author recreates Marlow's journey from Joseph Conrad's Core of Darkness, while also conducting his own investigation into European colonialism, violence and genocide. Following Conrad, Lindqvist searches not only for traces of specific crimes, but also for ideas, language and ways of thinking that have allowed them to be justified for decades.

The creators of the play invite you to the author's adaptation of The Nucleus of Darkness, placing Conrad's novel in the wider context of contemporary public debates and growing social tensions. They are interested in what connects Europe of more than a century ago with Europe today: the language of superiority, economic pragmatism, security, necessity and progress. How easily violence can be described as a rational decision and man as a problem to be solved.

Marlow is not just a sailor crossing the river in search of Kurtz. He becomes a correspondent, a media intermediary and an observer of a world in which information, images of war, migration, crisis and the economy merge into one disturbing stream. A journey deep into the colonial system turns into a journey through the language of modern media, politics and capitalism.

The show does not attempt to reconstruct the history of colonial crimes. Instead, it asks about the mechanisms that allow societies to tame violence, get used to dehumanizing language, and increasingly efficiently divide people into those who need to be protected and those who can be sacrificed.

What has really changed since Conrad? And then how will we know that the story we once read about in the lessons begins to happen around us?