A century of The Waste Land: T.S. Eliot’s famed verses come alive on stage

What happens when an architect‑turned‑director takes up T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land ? Eliot’s fractured poem is transformed on stage into a living canvas. That is exactly what Axel Tangerding, founder of META Theatre Munich, does. Known for bringing his architectural sensibilities to the theatre, he treats the stage not as backdrop but as environment: a stark white square, covered with plaster, “prepared anew for each performance,” then broken layer by layer to reveal what lies beneath. “It’s like looking beneath the surface,” he explains over a call from Germany. “In a time of fake news and fragmented realities, theatre must ask what is reliable, what comes down.”