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Theater Stap!

Het Spektakel van de Halven & de Helen (The show of the half-witted and the intact) 2019

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For “The show of the half-witted and the intact” director Bart Van Gyseghem started from the vulnerable position occupied in today’s world by the mentally disabled. In the pursuit of perfection this world is willing to sacrifice those who cannot follow.

This short play shows a bizarre world in which nearly everything is imperfect, decayed too, everything seems to have had its best time. Nevertheless, the mechanism keeps on turning in an absurd way, even though sand got into the machine.

Conventions get off the track, codes get lost, the grotesque takes over. We follow characters who try to get somewhere: a doctor in the circus, a clown in the hospital, trapeze artists operate in the void, an insurance broker wants to force some papers on someone … The half-witted are put together and the intact are dismantled.

At the end nothing was gained, nothing recovered, nothing reached. The ritual was performed. Without anyone intervening, other shows will follow. Until the show is threadbare and someone sweeps the flakes and splinters together into a little pile.

Eight mentally disabled actors play ‘The show of the half-witted and the intact’. Nothing in the hands, nothing in the pockets.

All they need is twenty minutes to leave us, the audience, behind as being orphaned, confused and half drunk.

tour dates

credits

director: Bart Van Gyseghem

costumes: Katrien Van Bael

actors:

Kenneth Boven

Liesbeth De Hertogh

Daan Hutten

Els Laenen

Pieter Lavrijssen

Jelle Palmaerts

Leen Teunkens

Gitte Wens