‘Gilgamesh’, marking the 10 year anniversary of the Danish performance collective ‘Logen’, is an interpretation of a 3000 year old myth. The ancient legend of the part-god king of Mesopotamia and his quest for immortality becomes a story of a rotten entertainment industry, characterized by patriarchal megalomania and power-hunger. Or does it?

Logen was founded in 2014 and describes itself as ”inspired by the monstrous, dirty thoughts, overconfidence and the subconscious”. It consists of Anja Behrens, Patrick Baurichter and Nathalie Mellbye accompanied by guests for the occation. Since the birth of the group, they have created provocative, improvisational and interactive performances interpreting classic stories. ’Gilgamesh’ is a co-production between Logen and Sort/Hvid Theater in Copenhagen, whose newly appointed director is no other than Anja Behrens, a fact that will soon prove ironic. It will be performed from 27. September 2024 - 19. October 2024.

The story of Gilgamesh is a story of a king who’s tyrannic rule leads the gods to create a beastly man, Enkidu, to defeat him. As Enkidu shows inadequate in defeating Gilgamesh, the two team up to challenge the monster Humbaba of the Ceder Forest.

At the beginning of every performance, the group tells their audience ”what happens in Logen stays in Logen”. In the case of ‘Gilgamesh’, it probably should have stayed in Logen.

Shortly after being seated, the smell of popcorn fills the room, foreshadowing the transmedial beginning of the show. An esoteric film about the origins of King Gilgamesh and Enkidu the beast screens is followed up by a parodic talk show, featuring an interview on artistic inspiration with “the artist”. The artist does not answer the interviewer directly, but instead speaks through an interpreter, submissively kneeling by their side. Moments like this are the more memorable ones of the evening. An entertaining and spot on observation of the industry that the performance finds itself within.

Here, forty minutes into the three-and-a-half hour long show, is where the coherence ends. The actors embark on what is assumably a pursuit to provoke the audience with nudity, violence and a dubious presentation of moral dilemmas. The interpreter undresses by the command of the artist, and a long sequence involving red sausages, which is better off forgotten, follows. The audience is transported into “the Ceder forest” entered through a door in the auditorium. Here we meet Humbaba, the mother of seven children and victim of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. For hours hereafter, a seemingly improvised series of awkwardly violent and violently awkward events occur, making it painfully uncertain if Logen expects, or even needs, the spectators to intervene. After three hours and one raft building exercise, this tedious format begins to feel frankly disrespectful to the audience.

We make trip back to the lobby to witness an apologetic speech from Baurichter. Mind you, not a righteous apology to the audience, but an apology to the decapitated Humbaba, who now suddenly represent mother nature and whose head he is holding in his hand. What happened to the tyrant of the entertainment industry? At this point, it is difficult to care. It would have suited ‘Gilgamesh’ to decapitate itself right then, but we return to the ceder forest to spend thirty minutes silently watching Behrens hoisted from the ceiling. This is when the expectation of some sort of explanation inevitably amounted in disappointment.

‘Gilgamesh’ must be justly credited for their experimental approach to theater and unique mixture of mediums. It is, in the spirit of the legend, an odyssey of multiple tablets. The Ceder Forest and it’s creatures are beautifully designed and brings a brief sense of hope for what is an ambitious performance with plenty of intentions, but simply no curation. The show is the fragmented leftovers of something that could have been a great play.

A generous assumption would be, that Logen is hesitant to undermine their audience, but a more probable postulate is, that they simply do not care about them. Rather, it treats them similarly to how the tyrant king treated his people, and like him, brutally fails to achieve immortality. The impression ‘Gilgamesh’ leaves is that Logen must have had a lot of fun making it. And that’s about it.