“It is a strange realism, but it is a strange reality.”

As sci-fi as it is retro, and as faithful as it is daring, Planet Winter reconciles what seems contradictory, paying tribute to its inspiration. Bavo Buys and Maliqa Fye immersed themselves in The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin and decided to bring the audience along.

(excerpt)
Most oppositions we see as dogmatic seem not to occupy the average Winterling mind.
Man, woman.
Past, future.
Cold, warm.
Life, death.
Fast, slow.
Reality, fiction.
Peace, war.
Friend, foe.
Nature, culture.
Good, bad.
Sexy, ugly.
Yes, no.
Hard, soft.
Top, bottom.
Colleague …
The answers are often, just like the species themselves, simultaneously in between the two extremes and both at the same time.

Bavo Buys drags a heavy carrier bag behind them, with Matilde Casier lying stiffly on top. The layers of wrapping protect their characters, Estraven and Genly Ai, from the cold emanating from the glacier. They move slowly and in circles around the icy blue canvas in the center of the stage. Even their journey seems frozen. “Where am I?”

Genly Ai asks this question to Estraven in The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1969 literary classic. The American writer combined fantasy and science fiction to depict Gethen and its gender-fluid society. Because the inhabitants of this planet are neither male nor female, yet both at once, there is no war or abuse. Children are raised by the entire community, and social relationships develop independently of sexuality.

“That’s what I find so fascinating,” Bavo says. “It’s never just about gender, and at the same time, it’s never not about it.” Bavo explored the novel and Le Guin’s work for their master’s thesis. “For the first time during my studies, I thought: this is it, this has to be made into a play.” The relationship between Estraven, a respected politician on Gethen, and Genly Ai, envoy to the intergalactic alliance of the Ekumen, especially captured their imagination.

When the two characters go on the run together and must cross a 1,300-mile ice plain, they finally begin to understand each other. “That’s also what The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction is about,” Bavo explains, referring to Le Guin’s 1988 essay. “It’s a non-confrontational way of telling stories.” Le Guin saw sci-fi, like the novel, as a tote bag or ‘carrier bag’: a disorderly bundle of many stories, without a purposeful, heroic, conflict-driven progression. She reshaped the genre in her own way, and she knew it. “It is a strange realism,” she wrote, “but it is a strange reality.”

The harmony between Estraven and Genly Ai is broken by the magical appearance of Maliqa Fye. Her role is that of Faxe, the fortune-teller in The Left Hand of Darkness. “They have history” notes Genly Ai. Unlike in the book, Faxe now plays a leading role and shares a past with Estraven. The arc remains tense on Planet Winter.

Faxe has little in common with the average ‘Winterling.’ “Playing a non-binary alien felt so at odds with how I feel today”, Maliqa shares. It’s one of the first times she’s on stage as a trans woman. Faxe is the only character that is truly feminine and is also described that way in the book. She sings softly when delivering Faxe’s predictions, and she seems to float through the space. “Visual and atmospheric,” is how she describes her interpretation. She remains true to her quest for beauty.

In contrast to Maliqa, Bavo surprises by staying as close as possible to Le Guin’s Estraven, “a rather serious character”. In other performances, Bavo stands out for their exaggerated and comedic roles. “In Planet Winter I play small, vulnerable, and less for laughs. I wanted to show a side of myself that people are less familiar with.’”

The real ambition of Bavo and Maliqa lay not in the acting but in the design of Planet Winter. They had a Gesamtkunstwerk in mind, and they achieved it thanks to the people around them. Bavo: “During rehearsals, we often said to each other: ‘Luck is running, luck is on our side’.” This theme runs like a thread through both the novel and the performance. “We’ve also been incredibly lucky with our team.”

Bavo and Maliqa share their friendship, their passion for Le Guin, and their education at KASK & Conservatorium with Matilde Casier and Marthe Balthazar – plenty of reasons to involve them as Genly Ai and dramaturg. For visuals, they turned to Bosse Provoost and Ezra Veldhuis, who introduced them to lighting and stage design. Maliqa: “In school, that always came last, but for me, this is where theater begins.”

Perhaps the two performers are luckiest to have each other. Maliqa is visually oriented, while Bavo is more narrative-focused. They are best friends and complement each other so well that they plan to continue as Oracle & Odyssey after Planet Winter. We can expect more ‘world-building’. “Maybe not sci-fi, but definitely something dark, something witchy, or something biblical”, Maliqa predicts. Promises that are also made: pop culture, inside jokes, and plenty of references. I take them at their word.