It is a cruel and bewildering place where the exiled humans find themselves.

It rains fire and brimstone.
Or water — for weeks, until everything is swallowed.

Yet nothing is as unsettling as what awakens within them: jealousy, desire, vengefulness, love.

Thomas Ryckewaert ventures into the first book of the Bible — at once dusty and bloody, myth and masterpiece: Genesis.

In Genesis (I) – Science, the text is opened up in a university lecture hall. Philosophers, theologians, and translators circle the beginning, searching for meaning.

In Genesis (II) – Religion, the text becomes ritual. A subtly directed mass, where church and theatre touch.

In Genesis (III) – Theatre, the book becomes flesh. A performance about our lifelong attempt to master chaos.

In Genesis (I, II, III), Ryckewaert successively directs the scientist, the priest, and the actor. A quest for the origin of performance, for the core of ritual.

Is liturgy theatre?
Is theatre liturgy?

In truth, I believe in nothing,
And I doubt everything, even You.
But sometimes, when I think that You truly live,
Then I think that You are Love, and lonely,
And that, in the same despair, You search for me
As I search for You.
Gerard Reve