Kristof schrijft over cultuur in en rond Gent. Vooral over muziek maar ook politiek, hedendaagse kunst, film, techniek, theater en literatuur komen soms aan bod.
Kristof is working as a freelance C++ Mac developer in Belgium, using his one man company.
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© Kristof Van Landschoot 2004-2010
Our friends from Ontroerend Goed got a raving review in The New York Times for the premiere of "Once And For All...". That is the English title of "Pubers Bestaan Niet", see my earlier post about it here (in Dutch).
There is no denying: almost everyone adores this show. Unfortunately these are its last days as the adolescents are slowly turning into adults and getting more and more unfit for the characters they are playing.
Any private company in a similar situation would try to cash in and get the highest possible profit out of this production. Not them. Rather than replacing the older actors with younger ones the people from Ontroerend Goed call it quits.
This touches an aspect of theatre that I am still personally struggling with. If in pop music you have something that even remotely resembles a hit, almost always a complete commercial machinery gets unleashed to maximize the profit. More profit makes that you have more means to produce and promote your next album.
In theatre on the contrary it seems to be all about the moment: "This show, here and now is brilliant, but it will be over tomorrow". Shows in Belgium play typically three nights before they move to another city. There is no way word of mouth will ever get to you so you will miss it if you are not willing to take the risk and just go blindly. Time and time again.
That makes it hard to convince people to come to the theatre. It is impossible for me to say to my friends: go see this and that show, it's brilliant, because the shows that I would recommend to them are simply not playing anymore. It seems that every time I succeed in convincing someone to go to the theatre it is a statistical inevitability that they will end up seeing something which is between mediocre and interesting and they will regret the time they spend there. As a result they will stay home and watch television the next time. Can you blame them?
It is extremely laudable to end a show on its peak like Ontroerend Goed does. It is a great display of artistic integrity and it shows great guts to not make any kind of compromise. It is just that it is such a shame not more people will be able to see it.
This interview on the Belgian Radio was taken the morning after the New York premiere.