Diderot’s Tears

Sharing is caring. Or is it? Theatre is increasingly taking the form of therapy: a safe, transparent space where healing, softness, a sense of shared suffering and uberpersonal trauma take centre stage. But how do you write about performances that are so close to the skin of their creators that any critical distance seems virtually impossible? And is there a risk of confusing art with care? These questions were on Charlotte De Somviele’s mind after seeing Malinconico by Par Hasard, Alabama by Fien Leysen and (v) by De Nwe Tijd.

Charlotte De Somviele

essay 27.05.2024

Marcus Lindeen & Marianne Ségol – Memory of Mankind (Kunstenfestivaldesarts)

A dialogic theatre from depressed dinosaurs

In a salt mine in the Austrian Alps lies an archive created by ceramist Martin Kunze, called The Memory of Mankind – a back-up of all human knowledge on ceramic plates. What do we want to preserve for the future? And who gets the authority to decide that? In their new performance, Swedish theatre maker Marcus Lindeen and French dramaturge Marianne Ségol ingeniously interweave Kunze’s project with the story of a queer archeologist and a couple that is confronted with amnesia.

Caroline Lee-Jeong

review 27.05.2024

Carolina Bianchi & Carolina Mendonça – We do not comfortably contemplate the sexuality of our mothers (Kunstenfestivaldesarts)

I met Hydra in a damp cinema

This performance was commissioned by the Kunstenfestivaldesarts to commemorate legendary Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman and her oeuvre. Carolina Bianchi and Carolina Mendonça, both Brazilian, ran into many conundrums when given this task. Talking about the artist through the lens of their art overshadows them, says Bianchi. She explains that by engaging with the artist’s work we mistakenly think that we understand them, that we know how they think. It can happen that the art exhibits apathy to something the artist believes in, like, in Akerman’s case, romantic love.

Ugnė Noreikė

review 24.05.2024

Toshiki Okada/Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus – Homeoffice

A Contemporary Ghost Tale of Hyper-(Dis)-Connection

“Remote work,” “telecommuting,” “digital nomadism” — paradisiacal conditions promising flexibility, freedom, and the coveted attainment of work-life balance. But is it truly so? Toshiki Okada’s new play at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus unfolds as a ghost story that dares to turn into a musical, where we can find ourselves as the protagonists.

Luca Domenico Artuso

review 21.05.2024

An anderstalig Public

Dramaturgy of Translation #1

Caroline Lee-Jeong

essay 07.05.2024

Medea’s Kinderen – Milo Rau/NTGent

Bringing a dragon to the shore of Oostende

Top of the show: a man dressed in black arranges seven chairs on the stage in front of red curtains. He takes a sip of water from a plastic water bottle, gazes out at the audience, tensely checks his cue sheet. He walks to the middle of the stage, but the lights remain bright on the audience. His name is Peter Seynaeve, the man says, and the aftertalk to Milo Rau’s Medea’s Kinderen will commence shortly.

Caroline Lee-Jeong

review 24.04.2024

Pledge under a tree

I invite you to eat some olives, preferably green ones. The way we eat them in the eastern Mediterranean, is with a generous squeeze of lemon, garlic slices and some olive oil—the longer you keep the olives in this mixture the better the flavour. It’s not easy to get good quality olives in Belgium, my recommendation is to buy the simple green variety from the smaller supermarkets run by people of Moroccan, Syrian or Turkish origin, selecting the most plain looking ones.

Samah Hijawi

column 07.04.2024