“Polarisation is the obvious worldview, and I want to challenge that worldview. Maybe, in fact, we are connected. Decency is almost the new punk. To be kind is now is maybe the thing that’s discomforting.” Ontroerend Goed, who first caught the public’s attention (and a degree of notoriety) with The Personal Trilogy (2004’s The Smile Off Your Face, 2007’s Internal and 2010’s A Game of You), may often be associated with challenging our ideas around trust, intimacy and the madness of crowds, but Artistic Director Alexander Devriendt believes that the frontier has shifted to something more challenging in this day and age: trust and community.
As the company bring their vote-along political satire Fight Night to the UK this October, we welcome Alexander into the voidspace to reflect on this shift from confrontation to community, the role of intimacy and interactivity in the company’s work, and what it means to make “interactive theatre for people who don’t like interactive theatre“.
Image: Michiel Devijver/Ontroerend Goed
voidspace:
Alexander, welcome to the voidspace. Really happy to have you here with us. What I always say about the voidspace is that it’s a lightly haunted attic. We’re here together, we’ve got a bean bag, we’ve got a cup of tea or coffee, I guess. The voices in the walls are listening in, they’re pretty friendly, so it’s all good. Thank you for joining me today. I’d love an overview for our readers who may not be familiar with who you are and what you do in this space.
Alexander Devriendt:
Thanks for having us. I’m Alexander Devriendt. I am the Artistic Director of Ontroerend Goed. We call ourselves a theatre performance group. We’ve been going on for quite a while now. I think since 2001, maybe, because it’s unclear where it really began. I would say we make experimental work for a broad audience. I sometimes use the one-liner, ‘I try to make interactive work for people who don’t like interactive work’. We’ve done really interactive work. We’ve done work where you’re just sitting in a space, in a normal theatre space. But the experiment is always there.
I always like to think that in the creation process, we always work with form and content, to make them close to each other. We use the black box of theatre as a very free space where many things are possible. And of course, you have an auditorium, and mostly the performers are on a stage, so you can do a lot of things with that. You can put a wheelchair in there, and put people in a wheelchair, blindfolded, or you can just respect that space, because you have to have a good reason to change that. But we like to work in that space. And on the last level, what we take with us are the questions we have about the world, about urgent issues…so we make new work that tries to deal with issues we’re facing and that we’re facing together. And then try to be broad to explain what, to us, we are.
voidspace:
I’d like you, if you could, to expand a bit on what you were saying about the idea that you make interactive theatre for people who don’t like interactive theatre? I’d love to know more about what you mean by that.
Alexander Devriendt:
A little bit like most people, when you explain interactive work, the first reaction of a normal theatre audience – people who are up for the theatre – is ‘that’s theatre I don’t like.’ There is an idea of interactive theatre that people resist. And I understand that. I also don’t like that theatre for myself. I’m glad it exists, and it’s good that it’s out there. What I feel for me, is that every theatre is interactive. And I suppose many people say that the fourth wall has gone, blah, blah, blah… and then they’re present and there. But for me, you have to have a very good reason to make a theatre piece, because you reach fewer people than you would with a film or a book. You have to be there to make it happen. And many media can be digitally viewed and spread. So, if you do theatre, use its strengths or its weaknesses. You can call it whatever you want.
The fact is, in theatre, I am present there, and the actor is present there, the performer, whatever you want to call them, and the audience. If it’s not needed that I’m there, as an audience member, why bother? That is a little bit of the feeling that I have. For me, putting that interaction there is almost essential to making theatre work in the 21st century. Because it’s such an inconvenient medium. If you use its strength, then, yeah, it’s necessary in that way. Another aspect is that I still like to see theatre. I bought a ticket to see an artistic viewpoint. I like it that I’m still a recipient.
Also, if I’m an audience member, don’t pretend I’m an agent. That’s why, for instance, I always found ‘choose your own adventure’ books really tricky, when I read them as a child. The book pretends I have a choice between A and B, but I don’t, because I’m just following the groove of what the book has set out to do: it doesn’t feel like I need to make that choice. There is a dishonesty at the heart of it.
But at the same time, you also want to present a show with an artistic viewpoint, that brings you to that particular point. And I’m happy that a lot of times we found a way of doing that. For instance, in a show called Fight Night, the audience can vote a performer off stage. They get a voting pad and you can press a button and it can vote a performer off stage, which is, of course, on the first level, big fun. You think, “oh, exciting! I can do this!” And of course, for me, the reason for doing this, is to talk about democracy. Underneath everything, it is an examination of the question: Why do we vote? Why do people vote? How do people win our votes? It’s especially relevant. The thing is, in Fight Night your vote matters: I really don’t know at the beginning of the show, who’s going to reach the end. There’s a truthfulness in that. We do know what’s going to be said, but your agency is really true as an audience member. You are deciding who will go. So for me, bringing form and content together feels truthful, as a mirror of society, talking about democracy, and also to your presence there, that it matters that you press those buttons.
Sometimes I take that even further. For instance, A Game of You It’s a one-on-one show where you enter, and in the show, we create an avatar of you that we give back to you. We have no idea how your show’s going to be, what your trajectory is going to be, because it’s based on your input. But it’s also not necessary that you are up for it. It doesn’t matter if you are engaging or not engaging, silent, or active. I don’t like interactive work that needs an active participant. I’m the person in the back who’s not participating. For instance, in Fight Night, if you’re not voting, that’s okay. But at the same time, the winner of the majority will say, “Thank you for those of you that didn’t vote because you contributed to my victory”.
voidspace:
That works so perfectly because that’s how it works in the real world as well. If you choose not to take part, then you have no right to complain about the outcome.
What I think is really interesting is that there’s almost an artistically grounded, bloody mindedness. If you’re going to expect me to be present and to undertake a part in this, don’t lie to me. Don’t pretend that I have an agency that I don’t actually have. Also, if you’re going to make me take part, let there be a reason that actually ties into the underlying message that I am trying to give you in this piece. Does that sound fair?
Alexander Devriendt:
Yeah, definitely.
voidspace:
It’s really interesting because for me, again, I’ve talked to so many different people who do so many different things with the concept of participation, and I like them all for different reasons. But for you, I think what’s so interesting is that each time, there’s the idea that the only thing that theatre has that can’t be done through digital media is that sense of liveness between the audience and the creator.
And I like the fact that you use that in different ways, because I think quite often a lot of companies start with the interaction they’re interested in and then decide what story they’re going to tell with it. Whereas it sounds like you’re starting with the message and then working out how that liveness is going to deliver it.
Alexander Devriendt:
That’s really the thing. That’s the freedom I have in that black box. I have an idea, I have a feeling, and sometimes that will lead to a normal show. And even then, you take all your interactivity and all your insights and all your artistic practice in that. But like I said, you have to have a good reason to ask something of the audience. For instance, when I made a show about money called £¥€$ (LIES), we already are used to being the 99%. I’m used to being somebody who doesn’t know what money is, doesn’t know what bankers do.
voidspace:
The theatre space is turned basically into a casino, right? Can you explain what the set-up of LIES is and then what you were going to say about the merging of form and substance?
Alexander Devriendt:
When you’re invited to LIES, you’re invited into a room and divided over several tables. You’re mostly together at the table with six other visitors, with your back towards the middle. And there’s a croupier figure behind the table that invites you to put money on the table. And that money is your actual money. You get it back at the end. But still, it felt necessary for the show, to feel like, I got involved. It made people care because then we transformed the money into chips. But people still had this idea that the real money was there somewhere. What we did is invite the audience to go on a journey of rules and games in a casino-like setting, where you’re betting with your money and investing, supposedly. But for me, that was a little bit like Fight Night.
And you could say, the history of the 1920s, of the creation of the market, up until the crash that we encountered in 2018. Not explicitly, but there is a sense of being a participant in that. And for me, it was important because when the crisis happened, I didn’t understand anything about money. I was lucky enough to read a lot about money, but I never really knew what it is? Of course, the arts were cut and then everything, but there was something intangible about what that meant. It was only tangible when I watched movies or the news – I saw people with their things in a cardboard box, going out of buildings. And I understood that most artists have the belief that money is something dirty, but it also decides our lives. So I thought, let’s figure out what money is. What I wanted to do with the show, is to show that it is not so difficult, and to make you feel. Thomas Piketty said: If people would really understand what money is, the revolution would break out.
So, the intention of the show was to show the audience what money was, but not to explain it as documentaries and books would. You’re invited to be a participant, because most of the time, with money, we aren’t. For me, the purpose of putting you at the tables, and being the 1%, was also, context-wise, something that I didn’t see in other media as possible. The visceral side of trading, of being in the cockpit of banks, that was the intention in LIES being a highly interactive show. It’s an example of the medium being the message, basically.
voidspace:
You’re finding the material, where the liveness or the presence and participation of the audience is actually essential to deliver that message. This is an example of how you’re creating that experience within people of what it feels like.
Alexander Devriendt:
And to also see theatre not as other, something outside of your world. We are consumers. We read websites, we read books, we see movies, we watch theatre. I like theatre to be part of your thinking process. For me, it is part of your reflection on the world. And of course, the nice thing about theatre is there’s this little moment where I can take you out of the real world, with no consequences. You can make decisions that maybe outside, or in the real world, you wouldn’t make. Now you can vote on something, and maybe you don’t have time to practice casting a vote, because when you have to vote, most of the time it’s real. You don’t have time to go to a casino and pretend that it’s not your money. Having this reflection: What does it feel like? I like this moment.
Because you’re constantly an active participant in real life as well. But you also sometimes feel like things happen outside of your control. So for me, the mirror of reality in theatre is there. Because you could say, like, theatre is a mirror, but I like it if the mirror is not absolute fiction to absolute reality, because absolute reality doesn’t exist, absolute fiction doesn’t exist. I’m constantly in a state of thinking: “Is this fiction, is this real, is it not in real life?” And in theatre, I like to have this question as well. Do I have agency or not? I like that it has that same friction.
voidspace:
In experiential theatre, the intention is often to create a very particular state in the participant. What I think is so interesting is that what you’re doing is creating mindsets or experiences that provoke people to consider maybe the more uncomfortable elements of their responses and experiences as well, or the freedom to experience ways of engaging that they may not want to do in real life. There’s the possibility that you’re going to walk out of the show having learned something about yourself that isn’t necessarily a comfortable truth to confront. And that’s something I think I was going to talk about, the Personal Trilogy.
I know it’s your early stuff that could lead into that feeling of discomfort around intimacy and trust as well. So that for me seems like a really interesting difference between what you’re aiming to do and maybe what a lot of other companies are aiming to do.
Alexander Devriendt:
For me, if I don’t think about interactivity or not, if I just think about work, and I tend to think, I make work, and this is the medium I’m given, what is the best use of this medium for the message? For me, I feel, for instance, with Fight Night, I could have a voter on stage and a politician and then have a discussion with me identifying as an audience member, and with one of them or all of them or bankers. But for me, in this medium of theatre, I can skip the identifying process that’s sometimes needed when I read a book. I can have a more direct communication. Treat you as a voter, rather than not making you identify with a voter on stage. No, you can be a voter on stage. But if I want to go for the discomfort, I think I always say I want to challenge your worldview, my own worldview.
And I’ll be honest, I didn’t vote in the past because I was questioning, it doesn’t matter. In Belgium, the government, we were without a government for 541 days. So, I shared that feeling. That’s why I made this show: not to make somebody else feel discomfort, but to explore my own discomfort. Why do I vote? Should I vote? Shouldn’t I? Is it okay that I’m here? Yeah. When I first made this show, it was also pre-Trump. And I had the feeling I had to shake myself awake. I had the feeling I needed to be woken up.
It was the same with Audience, a show that has given me headaches, and making me feel like we were living up to our reputation as “the controversial Belgians”. I made this show because I was afraid of the group mentality, but some people didn’t seem to understand what there was to be. And I thought: “let’s wake people up”. But now, for instance, I have a feeling that the thing that will challenge people’s worldview, and my own, is to start to trust each other. That seems like a risky thing to do.
So, for me, I’m now evolving in the latest shows, to try to find community, to find a connection to trust the other. And I’m trying to find forms that make me feel that way and to give the audience that experience. I just made a show called Funeral, as a ritual where you find a connection in loss. I made a show, Thanks for Being Here. It just said, Thank you, everybody, for being here and to see how creation, is always a collective experience. Because I have the feeling that now, challenging people’s worldview is more to trust the other than not. If you look at the fights or the protests now in the UK, it seems like we don’t understand our neighbour. Polarisation is the obvious worldview, and I want to challenge that worldview. Maybe, in fact, we are connected. Decency is almost the new punk. To be kind is now is maybe the thing that’s discomforting. So for me, discomfort doesn’t necessarily mean making you feel uneasy in a bad way, but just making you feel uneasy.
I have the feeling everybody’s awake, now. We just don’t know what to do with it. And we have to be awake, and we have to be woke, but the problem is it feels scary to be awake. So I don’t want to make a show that makes you feel you need to be awake, and you need… No, we know we are. So, making you an active participant in interactive theatre is not about waking you up. It’s of a more complex nature. But the problem is, of course, I know in the UK, especially, we’ve been known for work that is discomforting. Internal. So much has been written about Internal.
voidspace:
Just a note to give some context to our readers: Internal was an experience where you were put in a position of intimacy with a performer, and then things that you may reveal get shared with the room.
Alexander Devriendt:
With Internal, I set out to show how fast you start to care about someone you don’t know. That was the purpose of the show. We were still young and we were still creating it. How fast can you build a meaningful relationship with a stranger? That was the intention. So, there was a lot of ways of making you feel the connection with the stranger – the stranger being the actors. You had five visitors being put in a position where they were connected with one of the five actors. They had an intimate conversation where they talked in a separate booth. And then, by surprise for most of them, there was a group conversation where we talked about our relationship, and things were taken out of context sometimes. Some people called it speed dating, almost. But the thing was, I was myself amazed by how fast people cared. And even if you showed, I remember that we always made sure that the audience passed the makeup table to understand that they would see actors, to see the letters of the other visitors, to be really explicit about the fact that you’re not the only one entering here, and still people put their hearts out.
For us, that was a very surprising. What a process of secrets and stories. And that show got out of control.
voidspace:
So, you didn’t expect that response from people when you started it?
Alexander Devriendt:
No. I remember there was a moment we had a try-out of the first show in Belgium, in a village that was not our own, so we didn’t know those people. I had the role of creating a magical moment with my visitor. And I remember, I was sitting in front of a woman, and I felt immediately – this is flirting. This is flirting. Even in this setting, she has no sense that I’m an actor. She feels like we’re flirting and that we have this promise of what flirting is. An uncovered promise of an interaction.
voidspace:
Kind of an unspoken agreement or an unspoken contract, I guess.
Alexander Devriendt:
But for instance, there was also another couple that broke up after the show. This is our first try-out ever, and a couple breaks up after the show! We have a conversation, where we say “I don’t know if I want to make a show where a couple breaks up after the show. Maybe that’s not a good idea.”
voidspace:
Did they break up after the show because one of them had felt they’d had more genuine intimacy with this stranger than with their partner?
Alexander Devriendt:
Well, the interesting thing was the woman. We were doing it in try-outs, I think, and we had five visitors every half an hour, and we spent a half an hour with those five people. When we came out of the performance, the five groups, because we played five times or six times, were still sitting in booths talking to each other. So, we were watching a discussion between those five people. And because they knew it was a try-out, I think that one woman that I talked about overheard our conversation, and I’m still thinking about it. She came to me and she was like, “Hey, that’s not because of you. Don’t congratulate yourself. It could have been a shop visit, a video, a cinema, a conversation. You were just one part of the chain that led me in this situation.”
I loved it. She was almost saying, don’t make yourself too important here – which I’m doing. That’s interesting. This also gave me also a freedom to go: “okay, let’s do this performance”. Of course, the show went in many ways, and I would never make a show like that anymore. I don’t like it that the show is so out of control that you don’t know what it is about anymore. And it’s not always protective of people who are not prepared. But we also felt in Edinburgh, just people sometimes laugh at a show like that, loving a show that makes them angry, because they love to have a discussion about it, and it also created communities. So, I was also proud of that show. But… we remade The Smile Off Your Face, we remade, and A Game of You. Internal was the second part of the trilogy, but we always decided not to take that with us because we felt it’s just not a good enough show. It’s more of a social experiment, almost. And I think it’s important to have the reassurance of an artistic insight.
I’ll give another example. I made LIES because I really hate rich people. I really hate rich people. I’m not talking about people who have a house and a car. I’m talking about rich people who have too much to spend in any lifetime. I hate them. But you will feel none of that in the show. That is the fire behind why I made this show. But I don’t want you to leave the show thinking, “He hates rich people”. That’s not my intention, but it is the fire I have in the show. The show makes you question money in your position, and it makes you a part of it. But making it interactive isn’t out starting point. We start with the question: What does this work need to do for me?”, and the answer can be interactive, or not.
voidspace:
I like it. You have your driving reason, but you’re trying not to present it polemically. You’re trying to present something and give people the chance to draw their own conclusions. And that’s true of all theatre or good theatre. But with interactive, immersive things, where the actor and the audience are having a direct engagement with each other or where the audience and the audience are having a direct engagement with each other, one of the big issues that comes up is the ethical responsibility, almost a duty of care that you have both to your audience and to your fellow performers.
Alexander Devriendt:
I agree completely. The care is important. I think art needs to challenge your worldview, and that needs extra care. But also, on a very simple level, you want the art to be surprising. And you also don’t want it to be predictable. For instance, if I entered a show and I would see everything that I would see set out at the start, as a warning, it will prevent the work from being surprising and challenging.
voidspace:
Content warnings and things can be a bit neutering.
Alexander Devriendt:
I understand sometimes, for some audience members, it’s really needed. But for instance, now, I’m doing a show called Funeral. You’re doing a ritual, and we’re having a discussion. Do we need to say to the audience that it’s going to be a difficult subject? It’s called Funeral. I didn’t call it Gathering. I deliberately called it Funeral because it’s important, because I realised that’s the care. If you bought a ticket to a show called Funeral, I don’t have to explain to you that it could be a difficult subject matter. If you are willing to go to a show called Funeral and challenge your world, the first step is already made.
The same with The Smile Off Your Face. You know you’re going to a show, you’re mindful that you’re in a wheelchair. That’s the hardest thing you will have to do. If you’re ready to do that, nothing will surprise you. I’m not going to scare you. The hardest thing is to trust us – that you will be willing to let a performer blindfold you in a wheelchair, which is not an easy thing to do. So from the moment we put people in the wheelchair, we go super fucking slow. We really go slow. And later on, we go faster and faster because we know I don’t need to surprise you and baffle you in that way. And finding a new trajectory to challenge your worldview is not always about making you startled, but it is sometimes difficult, because I want to surprise you and I don’t want to be predictable.
With Funeral, I know I want to do a ritual. I know I want to make you active, because a ritual is not about watching it. The ritual is about an active experience. So the question for me is: how can I make you active, and still respect that you maybe don’t want to join in. I found that one solution was to to be really predictable in the show, because predictability makes you feel safe. I had to throw a lot of things that I knew overboard, because suddenly I was creating something that doesn’t need to be surprising, but I had to find another way of a creating a theatrical experience. For instance, when you enter the space, you see an actor, and they shake your hand, say, “welcome”. And immediately you think of a funeral. But then, you see that there are maybe four or five people I’m a row, and when they shake your hand they put you into the row, and the next person shakes your hand, as if you are welcoming them.
But nobody pretends it’s mourning. Everybody just says thanks for being here and welcome. And suddenly I’ve found a solution, where you greet everybody who is there tonight. You’re invited. Just shake hands. Maybe it’s the first time ever that you’ve seen everybody that you’re going to share an hour with. It has a reference, if you know, but nobody’s pretending it’s an actual funeral. There’s a freedom, in that you don’t have to do anything. We also make sure that your hands are cleansed before. You don’t know why, but you get this towel, a white towel, like on an aeroplane, like an oshibori, which is another ritual. But again, you also feel safe in that sense. It’s thinking about all those things. And the whole thing is really predictable, because you know what you’re going to do, but it’s still exciting.
It was so fascinating for me, too. Everything that I knew about interaction had to go out of the window. Now I’m making a show. I just made a show, Thanks For Being Here, which I’m really proud of. Sometimes you can make a show, you feel like it worked, it did what I set out to do. What I wanted to do within the show is to answer the question “how do I create an individual experience in a full house, a 400-seat room, a show that only exist because you are there, and only make a show that uses your expectations, your feeling, your contribution for a show that can only exist that night, but doesn’t require you to do anything?” And of course, I wanted to create a sense of community. How do we make something together, as a political statement? “Thanks for being here”, instead of, “you’re not allowed to be”. Really looking for that connection.
This is such a different state of mind to, for instance, the state of mind I was in when I made The Audience. That was also about the audience, but for me, more about being scared of audiences. So I wanted to make you feel scared, or that you can’t trust majorities, as well, because I was distrusting of them at the time.
And sometimes you can use older work and put it in a new light to suit the needs of the present moment.
voidspace:
That brings us back to Fight Night, that is coming back to the UK (to my home town in fact!) in October. I know we’ve talked a little bit about Fight Night and the voting mechanisms, as the operation of democracy. I’m aware that it’s a reframe and remake. It has been quite substantively reframed to suit the changing times that we’re in.
Alexander Devriendt:
The first thing I have to say, it was somebody in the company, Angelo Tijssens, who said that we need to bring Fight Night back, because it’s such a big election year, with elections in the UK, USA, France, the Netherlands and the European Parliament. It felt like the most important election year in decades. The funny thing is, we set out to rewrite the show because it had originally been written pre-Trump.
And I’ll be honest, Katy, I realised, we don’t have to change much. The show was never about social issues or about specific issues. It was always a metaphor for the principle of an underdog, the principle of an arrogant majority, the principle of a Westminster-based system, as opposed to a Belgian coalition system, the first-past-the-post system. All these elements are still there. It’s just that now democracy is even more questionable. And because the show has already been performed from Hong Kong, to America, to Russia, I can tell you stories about how differently that framework worked in those different ways.
But I remember when we looked over the script, we saw phrases like, “stolen the election…election is fake”, were already there. And we thought maybe we should avoid putting too many more explicit Trumpisms in it, because they were already there. We’d already performed the show while Hilary Clinton and Trump were campaigning. So we already felt that way. The only thing we had to adapt is, for instance, I remember when we made the show, the first question the audience was asked, was “Do you identify as a man or woman?” We had to revisit that. When we first made the show, it was also a little bit tricky, but that’s how some countries still did it. But now we thought, fuck it. You can’t do that anymore. That’s just offensive. At another point in the show, we asked, “Which word offends you the most?” But revisiting it we thought it was just deliberately provocative. We took more of those sorts of things out because they didn’t serve the means or the purpose of the show. So I was glad to revisit that.
But I’ll be honest, it’s not the show I would want to make now. I was not involved in the reboot. I’m happy it happened. It still resonates, especially with the younger generation. But for me, I’m at another moment. I’m trying to look for connection, as I said. And for instance, at a certain point, there’s a point in that show where we ask, halfway through the performance, “Do you trust the majority of the audience tonight?” For me, it’s always fascinating to see how the majority distrusts the majority, even though you’re there with like-minded people, people who go to the theatre. That’s, for me, the reason to make the new work. How can I make you trust the people around you instead of heightening your distrust? So for me, it’s fascinating because it premiered, the Fight Night remake, a month before the new creation. It was fascinating, obviously, but the show still resonates. It had a beautiful run, especially with younger people, and makes them really think. So I’m really happy the show is there.
We have many shows on tour and on our playlist, you could say. We’ve tried to find different ways to make shows work, to remake them. We tried to find other solutions than touring, and remakes are a solution for that – remaking shows internationally, using a local cast, in their local language. This makes sense from a sustainability point of view, but also just from a point of view of, why make, in Hong Kong, a show about money in English, because then you have an extra difficulty that makes you say, “I don’t understand money”. Let’s take away one barrier and just do it in Cantonese. So, you will understand money in your own language. And when you’re interacting and when you’re talking your mother tongue in a language that feels comfortable for you, it’s just more engaging. You don’t have to pretend, and you will dare to be more active.
voidspace:
It’s interesting to hear how your work functions, internationally. All theatre work is going to probably spring from the cultural context of the people who created it. I think you’ve done more worldwide work than a lot of companies that work in this space. So I’m interested to hear about cultural reception. I’m finding that the more artists from different cultural contexts that I interview, I actually am starting to think that maybe this idea of cultural reception isn’t as big a deal as people might think. Maybe actually, there’s a lot more that humanity has in common. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
Alexander Devriendt:
You took the words out of my mouth. It’s so fascinating that every interview always asks: “What’s different? What’s different? What’s different?” And in the beginning, you focus on that as a maker, as well. When I did The Smile Off Your Face, I was in the beginning going, “Oh, the Italians are more expressive, and the Dutch people are more distant”. Then after a while, I realised that there’s more that connects us, and I’m more interested in what that is.
But then again, sometimes you’re at the risk of saying a cultural aspect is common to humanity, when it’s only common to Western culture. And indeed, I’ve been lucky enough to be not only at the gateways, for instance, like Singapore or Hong Kong, where you still have this level of British culture that’s really mixed in that society and that cultural background. But for instance, when you’re playing in Shanghai, you don’t have that background to support you. And I remember that I was lucky enough not only going to perform the work there, but to make it together with local performers. When I work like that, I’m looking for the similarities. I’m looking for the things that connect us instead of looking for the differences. And it’s amazing how much you can find there.
Of course, you’re at the other side of the world but you are still with people who are already interested in the theatre. And so you already have a connection, maybe more than you would with a neighbour who has another job, and never goes to the theatre. But even then, I want to find that connection. And the nice thing about interactive work or theatre – the thing that makes it necessary – is that you have to be there for the thing to exist. Maybe that’s a better phrasing for me than the word interaction. Presence. It also matters who that person is. And it also matters that it’s not easily interchangeable, because you’re an active participant, you have to look for those similarities. But of course, in Hong Kong, when you talk about occupying a stage, which we do in Fight Night, it means something different. The Occupy Central Movement / The Umbrella Movement was a completely different feeling than the Occupy Wall Street movement. So the word has a different meaning. But the context of the show is looking for a similarity of resistance to injustice or feeling.
We were lucky. Our first trip abroad back in 2003 was not to the UK, the Netherlands, France, or anywhere like that. It was Morocco, by chance. We had made The Smile Off Your Face, where you are blindfolded in a wheelchair. And we were like, “What the hell are we going to do? How is this going to happen?” And we had somebody with us who would adapt the show to the culture there. We had a person with with Moroccan heritage and Flemish heritage. And in the beginning, she wanted to change the music, change everything. And I remember we were all for it. But then I thought: “I don’t think we need to”. The only thing I really had to change in the end was the intimate tactile behaviour. In Belgium, people were more comfortable with touching. Here, I immediately felt people are not comfortable when you touch them. So let’s just skip it because it doesn’t serve our need. I didn’t have the feeling we had to change the show. And the funny thing was, we ended up only changing that and not music or anything, because it felt almost like, let’s not pretend that we’re not from somewhere else, and sharing an experience with somebody from another culture.
voidspace:
Why patronise your audience?
Alexander Devriendt:
I remember that we took away the touching, the show was a little bit more sensual in Belgium, and it changed in Morocco. And afterwards, we kept it that way. We learned to adapt, to maybe find a similarity, and it maybe even would be better for Flemish audiences with less touching, because it was not a show that was about being intimate and sensuous. No, it was different kind of show. So our experience of adapting the show for Morocco actually made it a better show to bring back to Belgium
Involving different cultural perspectives from the start is more and more what we do. For instance, when we made the show, Fight Night, I deliberately made it not only with a group of Belgians, but we deliberately made it with people from Australia. It’s a completely different democracy-based system. We call them both democracy, but it’s hugely different.
I’m so glad you mentioned similarities because I really believe that. And of course, it’s about cherishing the differences and respecting it. But the lesson we took from Morocco is about changing what doesn’t serve the purpose of the performance, doesn’t feel like a necessity.
voidspace:
This is really interesting, thank you.
I see that you’re experimenting with something for 2025, called Handle With Care: a show in a box. I’d love to hear a little bit about that.
Alexander Devriendt:
Handle With Care started during COVID, because I thought we were supposedly digitally all connected. But I realised that I’m not connected to people I don’t see. And so I was trying to find a way of connecting. Like I always said, when the theatre is there, we need to be there and the audience needs to be there. But what if we, the performers, don’t need to be there? So the idea was we send a box to any theatre, with instructions, and that’s the only thing we do. Is it possible to have a theatrical experience on the other end? We don’t even have an actor, not even an authority. What if that group of people – and we chose now between five and 45 people, we’re still developing the show – what if these people have a box, they open it, and something happens that is called theatre. And again, respecting the fact that you don’t have to do anything if you just want to watch it, but also acknowledging that some people will want to.
And it’s amazing because we’ve tried it out now. It works. It can happen. It is possible.
voidspace:
For me, and maybe this is just my inherent pessimism, the concern for me in a completely performance is how you could be comfortable that people are going to engage in it in a way that is genuinely positive. Especially in interactive work, there are different ways of making sure the energy in the room stays where you want it to be.
Alexander Devriendt:
I like that: giving up the control of that, and trusting the group you’re represented to, that they don’t need another authority to take care of that. Because, of course, that is the message for me. Sometimes you have the feeling that government or the theatre makers or somebody has to take care of it. But if you know there’s no authority, maybe it’s not needed.
And you know that experiment that they sometimes say when they put people in a room and there’s smoke coming from under the door? And because nobody reacts, you don’t react. It’s like, I want to question that idea because I don’t believe it. I think people, if they know there’s no authority, will take care of each other. That is the purpose of the show.
voidspace:
That is lovely. Thank you. What advice to you have for creators starting out in this field?
Alexander Devriendt:
When it comes to making interactive work, specifically: it needs to serve what you want to say. If it doesn’t serve what you want to say, it’s going to feel like a gimmick. Of course, explore it and do it. But I think if the audience understands why you engage them in this way, they will be happily involved, if the content in front of them fits together. If it does, then the possibilities are endless.
Fight Night comes to Watford Palace 24-26 October 2024. Get tickets here.
Find out more about Ontroerend Goed’s work here.