The Twin Cities offer a pretty rich mix of theatrical experiences, from tiny black-box storefront stages to the far-famed Guthrie, but some of the most daring, risky, and off-the-mainstream stage action can be found in that souped-up art gallery known as the Walker Art Center.

The Walker's McGuire Theater is a postmodern gem, a smallish but super-high-tech performance space that isn't blank and boxy like many such hip venues—it's a kind of scaled-down version of a nineteenth-century European opera house, complete with box seats and a curvy, convoluted design motif.

I can't think of a better place to watch what promises to be a curvy, convoluted, altogether amazing theater piece from Australia this weekend. Ganesh Versus the Third Reich may sound like the craziest Quentin Tarantino movie ever, but it's actually a play put together by Back to Back Theatre of Geelong, Australia. The premise? Ganesh, the elephant-headed Indian god beloved as the "remover of obstacles," time-travels to Nazi Germany to reclaim the swastika, the great Indian symbol of felicity and luck, from the "master race"'s perverted appropriation of it.

Add to this quasi-Marvel Comics premise the fact that all but one of the actors in the company are, as the show's script puts it, "perceived to be intellectually disabled"—living with Down Syndrome and other developmental issues—and you have what a New York Times reviewer called "a vital, sense-sharpening tonic for theatergoers who feel they've seen it all."

Questions of Power

The actors and their director—a classically handsome "undisabled" theater type who is prone to performance-art jargon and overt and subtle manipulation—discuss the play they are creating as it unfolds.

This sort of self-consciousness is a familiar tactic in avant-garde performance, but the added dimensions in this show turn it into what promises to be a fascinating meditation on power—political, theatrical, intellectual, and creative. Who gets to play Hitler, and who is to be given the role of the Holocaust survivor? What right do any of these modern actors have to represent any of these characters, including an Indian god? What does the audience expect to see—perhaps a bit of a freak show?

Aside from the fascination of the play itself, I'm rooting for Back to Back at least partly because they don't come from either of Australia's flashy metropolises, Sydney or Melbourne—they do their remarkable work in the Columbus, Ohio-sized port city of Geelong, in the state of Victoria.

Geelong was one of the country's most heavily industrialized places until the 1970s, when the manufacturing sector went into decline. In recent years, Geelong has been reinvesting in, and reinventing, itself, with new residential development and support for culture—including the remarkable theater company that will be in town Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Ganesh Versus the Third Reich
By Back to Back Theater
January 31, February 1 and 2
8:00 PM
McGuire Theater
Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Avenue
Minneapolis