The Low Countries. Jaargang 6

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Film and Theatre

Blauwe Maandag's Great Shakespearean Adventure

Since its establishment in 1984 the Flemish Blauwe Maandag Compagnie (Blue Monday Company) has evolved from an initiative in the margin to one of the most well-known and highly appreciated theatre companies in the Dutch language theatre scene. Its very first performance (The History of Don Quixote - De geschiedenis van Don Quichot) also had a symbolical significance: the moribund temple of culture that Sancho Panza and Don Quixote went into battle against was the official theatre. Luk Perceval, the spiritual father of Blauwe Maandag, had resigned from his position as an actor with the Royal Dutch Theatre (Koninklijke Nederlandse Schouwburg; kns) in Antwerp, as a result of dissatisfaction with the mentality of a theatre company that was sinking ever more deeply into artistic mediocrity.

Today, thirteen years later, the old ‘rebel’ has won over the old kns bastion. Blauwe Maandag and kns are merging to form Het Toneelhuis. Perceval and his brother-in-arms from the beginning, Guy Joosten (who had been active in opera in Germany meanwhile), are once more at the helm. However, before that came about, the Blauwe Maandag Compagnie worked out a mammoth project that will go down in the annals of history. The Flemish author Tom Lanoye, very popular on account of his astute newspaper columns and his literary theatrical solos, and producer Luk Perceval adapted Shakespeare's eight ‘kings’ plays to make a ‘serial drama’ of almost twelve hours duration. To War (Ten Oorlog) - which had its première at the end of 1997 - is a memorable coping stone, which is, moreover, very typical of the work of Blauwe Maandag. The impulse to revival that Blauwe Maandag gave to

Blauwe Maandag Compagnie. To War (Ten oorlog. 1997-1998) (Photo by Corneel Maria Ryckeboer).

theatre in the Low Countries, is not to be found in narrow experiments with form or anything on a small scale. Feeling their way round in the labyrinth of human relationships, the group often turned to the repertoire of the greats (Dryden, Chekhov, Strindberg, Gorki, O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, but also Norèn, Topor and Hopkins). Sometimes they were involved in enormous co-productions and sometimes they achieved interesting confrontations between older and younger actors. One of their trump cards is a highly individualistic approach to theatrical production, coupled with an acting dynamic which stimulates the imagination of a wide public. As far as Blauwe Maandag are concerned, fascinating theatre is always commentary enacted upon a text, with the understanding that the text itself is not stifled under ‘wild’ production concepts and that the actors retain their right to existence, their opportunities for creativity and pleasure in the game. Thus the work of Blauwe Maandag in Belgium at the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties forms a kind of synthesis, combining stylisation and spontaneity, emotion and hilarity.

Despite its great variety of productions Blauwe Maandag developed a style which can be said to be relevant to the present generation. Out of the exciting interaction between distance and commitment came a wonderful combination of empathy and irony. The foundation layer of realism on which the acting is built in gestures, mime and words is not overgrown with the theatrical commonplaces of so-called realistic acting. This guards against falseness in the acting. Authenticity is frequently to be found in distortion. By avoiding illustrative acting the text is no longer the word alongside the deed, but the word itself becomes the deed. The combination of several layers of language (from verse to dialect) takes on not only a thematic but also a plastic significance.

The lively contrast of images, characteristic of bmc productions, lies principally in the great mobility with which the dramatic text is hulled in the course of acting. Within the unity of an individual view on the play, each fragment of text is as it were accorded its own face. This leads to capricious configurations and breaches of style, and frequently gives the play a new dramatic structure. Between peaceful, intimate, shortlived images and intensified accumulations of images lies a gamut of elaborations, now modest, now exuberantly grotesque. Sometimes both verbal and physical turbulence explodes in impressive scenographic images.

It is fascinating to see how in this respect the Shakespearean adventure To War provides a sort of synthesis of thirteen years of Blauwe Maandag. Or perhaps rather a compilation. The different facets of style in To War point with a wink to earlier work. There is raw naturalism and slapstick, grand guignol and popular entertainment with the pretensions of a conference. Baroque symbolism alternates with intimist scenes, dispassionate speech with rhetoric. There are outbursts of hilarity and physical anger, but also expressive pauses. This variety is not unintentional; it provides the

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dramaturgical accents which are ultimately responsible for the textures of this marathon. To War is a theatrical commentary on human history as presented in Shakespeare's depiction of the Wars of the Roses. It is often a history that you watch with revulsion, but also mockery, cynicism, powerlessness and sympathy. Everything is reflected in the text and the images.

The Lanoye-Perceval duo had little concern for the political context from within which Shakespeare commented on national history. What was of particular interest to them was the underlying human dimension, in which aggression, tyranny, treachery and battle are universal constants. Man in a hostile world, and man in conflict with himself. The reduction of 40 acts or 200 scenes to 11 hours of theatre on one day, or in three entire-evening performances of instalments of two plays at a time, demanded organisation and simplification.

Between the first ‘kings’ drama (Richard II) and the last (Richard III) historically there is almost a century. Blauwe Maandag converts this period to an impression of 700 years of human nature. The broad outline is immediately clear. Just as the murder committed by Cain is a stigma on the history of human nature, so also the false step of Richard ii irrevocably sets the tone for the whole tale. At the end of the first play ‘the mother of all wars’ is foretold. It will bring an endless accumulation of hate, chaos and horror, in which generation upon generation of fathers, sons, brothers and nephews will massacre each other.

Lanoye and Perceval arrange the material as a cultural-historical evolution. The first sequence (Richaar Deuxième - Richard II - and Hendrik Vier - Henry IV, part I and II) evokes the middle ages. Under the pretext of high ideals a battle for power rages between fathers and sons. In this world of ‘enlightened’ male spirits women have almost no part. In the second sequence (Hendrik de Vijfden - Henry V - and Margaretha di Napoli - based on Henry VI, parts I, II and III) women permeate every situation, and the ego explores itself to the full: the Renaissance. The third sequence (Edwaar the King - based on Henry VI, part III - and Risjaar Modderfokker den Derde - Richard III) leads us straight to the complete self-destruction of mankind. Both stylistically and in terms of content the performance culminates in a universal let-down. The twentieth century is making its mark.

To fashion such an evolution in a single marathon production presupposes, among other things, a simple set. Thanks to dynamic lighting, that opens all registers, the polyvalent ‘empty space’ with three wooden floors undergoes a variety of scenic metamorphoses. It is one huge stage, where feudal ruler develops into Mafioso. There is a clear evolution in costume, acting, and, above all, language.

Throughout the whole cycle iambic verse is never far away. At first the verses sound like a powerful modern rendering of the classical. They reflect the sacrosanctity and dignity of the king, God's anointed. However, this almost ritualised language is quite soon punctuated with doggerel, and now and then an abusive slang cautiously emerges, to flow via various channels into a decadent triviality of language. In the course of the performance Richard iii, physically and mentally a freak, also becomes a foul-language monster that eventually bursts open, spewing verbal vomit. In the third sequence the sons of York sniff coke. ‘Who de fok has made a rolling stone of Daddy York’, they shout with slurred words at the sight of their father's impaled skull. They lard their language richly with English words, but this verbal mishmash of slang, pop and hiphop, thrown out at the racing tempo of the clip culture, is more swagger than substance.

In Shakespeare Richard iii says of Queen Elizabeth: ‘relenting fool and shallow changing woman’. In the mouth of Jan Decleir (Richard) it comes out as ‘you modderfokking silly stupid cow, bescheten blasted bloddie buggered bitch’. It shows courage and considerable power of language to re-write Shakespeare in such a manner, quite deliberately to introduce a contemporary idiom, and yet to remain true to the spirit of the original text.

Perceval and Lanoye conceived Hendrik de Vijfden, a quick recital of scenes, as a western. The French royal household is a bunch of idiots and the raising of their army a farce. The young Yorks are gangsters. But one of the most radical interventions is La Falstaff, a combination of Wet Nurse, Mother Goddess, Transvestite and Diva. For Henry iv La Falstaff represents a subversive culture, but the crown prince is under the spell of this homosexual, who turns him on and flatters him. When later, as Henry v, he frees himself from his La (Mamma) Falstaff, it is as if we are toppling into the adolescent phase in the history of mankind. A new Ego has to be developed now. From that moment on women begin to control the political intrigues and the battle of the sexes can begin.

This will doubtless sound too extreme at times to the ears of Shakespeare exegesists. Blauwe Maandag do not steer clear of ridicule and parody. But that does not exclude the great emotions in the main, and also the small family drama on occasion. The actors chisel their characters into being with great verve. Kings are crafty villains, thugs, opportunists, or they go mad and escape into mystical contemplation. The one scene tips over into another, as easily as a person changes masks. In this epic fresco the psychological mechanisms are demonstrated rather than analysed. The limitation of a relatively small cast (15 actors) has a certain added value in that respect. By allowing the same actors to appear as consecutive characters, there is a strange transparency. Sometimes the actor carries something over from the one role to the other, or, vice versa, he is a prefiguration of a future role. This exposes surprising connections in a suggestive manner: e.g. between Richard ii and La Falstaff, between Bishop Winchester and Richard iii.

To War is not just a stunt. It is the laying out of an interesting course. Now hand in hand with Shakespeare, now cheekily looking the other way, Blauwe Maandag portray the great human passions in all these beings who are so pleased to call themselves King. It is a grotesque yet bitter tale, from self-libera-

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tion to self-destruction. After a period in which Blauwe Maandag was struggling to find a new pace and a second wind, To War is the culmination of an important phase.

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Translated by Sheila M. Dale.