paradís inundar
simfonia extraviada

Like bodies of water, the words and images that Thomas Köck creates in the first part of his Climate Trilogy close in upon us. Are they floods from paradise rolling up here as a curse, revenge or a blessing for the earth? Or is it earthly paradise itself that is being flooded and made uninhabitable?

With powerful language and shot through with melancholy comedy, in Inundacions del paradís. Una simfonia errada Thomas Köck brilliantly spans an arc from the early stages of globalisation to the present: from the rubber boom of the late 19th century to which entire regions and peoples fell victim to the madcap export of bourgeois European culture through the construction of the Teatro Amazonas opera house to the story of a dancer who feels the naked power of today’s working world – fully flexible, project-based and self-promoting. Will the floods wash the last bit of humanity away from the earth like a face in the sand at the bottom of the sea?

With Paradís inundar. Simfonia extraviada, Köck won the Kleist Prize for an Emerging Playwright 2016 and was nominated for the Heidelberger Stückemarkt 2016.

This work-in-progress is carried out in the context of the Fabulamundi. Playwriting Europe project. The translation of this text has been made possible thanks to the support of Goethe Institut–Barcelona.