UMAC will present the exclusive return of Back to Back Theatre’s landmark production Ganesh Versus the Third Reich this June, bringing one of Australia’s most acclaimed and internationally celebrated works of contemporary theatre back to the stage after more than a decade, for a strictly limited season at the Union Theatre.
This one-off Australian season offers a rare chance to revisit this modern classic ahead of its return to the global stage, as Back to Back Theatre prepares for a major international apperance at Paris’ Festival d’Automne in 2026.
Premiering at the Melbourne International Arts Festival in 2011, Ganesh Versus the Third Reich has toured to more than 34 cities worldwide and received widespread critical acclaim, including a Helpmann Award for Best Play, an Edinburgh International Festival Herald Angel Critics Award, three Green Room Awards and The Age Critics’ Award at Melbourne Festival. At the 2024 Venice Biennale, Back to Back Theatre became the first Australian company to win the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre. In 2022, they took home the International Ibsen Award, often described as ‘the Nobel Prize for Theatre’.
This exclusive presentation forms part of UMAC’s ongoing commitment to supporting significant Australian works that engage with complex ideas and expand the possibilities of performance. Ganesh Versus the Third Reich is a poignant, beautiful, disarming play full of vulnerability and sly transparency where audiences are invited to ask who has the right to tell a story and who has the right to be heard.
The story begins with the elephant-headed god Ganesh travelling through Nazi Germany to reclaim the Swastika, an ancient Hindu symbol. As this intrepid hero embarks on his journey a second narrative is revealed: the actors themselves begin to feel the weighty responsibility of storytellers and question the ethics of cultural appropriation.
The show is made before our very eyes and takes on its own life. It explores our complicity in creating and dismantling the world, human possibility and essentially, hope.
Speaking to the production’s return to the Australian stage, Back to Back Theatre’s Artistic Director Bruce Gladwin shared, “Returning Ganesh Versus the Third Reich to Melbourne after this time feels significant. At its core it’s a piece about agency, about authorship, authority, and representation and it continues to hold us to those questions.”
Back to Back Theatre creates new forms of contemporary performance imagined from the minds and experiences of a unique ensemble of actors with a disability, giving voice to social and political issues that speak to all people. Based in Geelong, the company is one of Australia’s most globally recognised and respected contemporary theatre companies.
Virginia Lovett, Director Performing Arts University at UMAC added, “It has been 15 years since Melbourne audiences experienced this landmark production. Ganesh vs The Third Reich went on to tour over 30 cities globally and galvanise Back to Back Theatre as one of Australia’s great cultural exports. I am thrilled to be able to program it for UMAC’s 2026 season before they company heads to Paris for the prestigious Festival d’Automne.”
Ganesh Versus the Third Reich will play exclusively at UMAC in June 2026. Tickets are on sale now via www.umac.melbourne and Ticketmaster.
Ganesh Versus the Third Reich
17-19 June 2026
Union Theatre, The University of Melbourne
15 Monash Road, Parkville, VIC 3010
Tickets are on sale now via www.umac.melbourne and Ticketmaster.
University of Melbourne
Arts and Culture
15 Monash Road
Parkville VIC 3010
umac.melbourne
UMAC is part of the University of Melbourne Global, Culture and Engagement
ABOUT BACK TO BACK THEATRE
Back to Back Theatre has received 23 national and international awards including the 2024 Venice Biennale Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre, an International Ibsen Award, a Helpmann Award for Best Australian Work, an Edinburgh International Festival Herald Angel Critics’ Award, a New York Bessie and the Myer Foundation Group Award for longstanding contribution to the development of Australian theatre.
ABOUT UMAC
University of Melbourne Arts and Culture (UMAC) presents and commissions inspiring and entertaining arts experiences throughout the year at its award-winning cultural precinct on the northern edge of the CBD.
Under the leadership of University of Melbourne Performing Arts Director Virginia Lovett, UMAC presents an annual off-semester program of major contemporary works, offering a new destination for arts lovers and artists.
In recent years they have brought long-awaited productions to Melbourne including award-winning seasons of Belvoir’s Counting and Cracking and Griffin Theatre Company’s Whitefella Yella Tree. In 2025 UMAC commissioned and premiere
