How Goes the World - Histoire(s) du Théâtre V Tim Etchells / NTGent

They exit and enter through doors somehow separated from walls, rushing to be part of a play that either hasn’t started or else ended decades ago. They slump to the sofa, weeping. They rise from the armchair in anger, then collapse again like amnesiacs. They head downstage to stare from a window that doesn't exist anymore. A piano plays the same tune repeatedly, grinding and warping its’ melody.

With Tim Etchells, NTGent adds a big name to the list of (inter)national artists creating a brand new play for the Histoire(s) du Théâtre series. Etchells’s contribution to the series uses a fragmentary quotation from Shakespeare’s Macbeth as its title: "How goes the world".

"Go see it," Belgian leading newspaper De Standaard advised back in September, "because as founder of the legendary British company Forced Entertainment, Etchells himself is a bit of living history. His absurd, philosophical, poetic lyrics always twist your perspective on reality."

Four performers come and go in a confusion of roles, costumes, scene changes, and light effects. Butlers, servants, messengers, soldiers, doctors, lovers, murderers, dancers, drunks, scoundrels, liars, and innocents are all here, along with queens and kings in tattered robes, all of them wailing in the fake snow that falls somewhere between the bookcase, the coffee table, the dead tree and the ironing board. A storm outside. A war in the distance. The sound of applause.

Trigger warning: this performance contains references to suicide. If you have questions about suicide and want to talk about it call suicide line 1813 for free.

About Tim Etchells

Tim Etchells is a British artist and performer, born in 1962. He co-founded the company Forced Entertainment in 1984 and has been its artistic director ever since. In the past decades, Forced Entertainment became renowned all over the world for its renewing, minimalist, humorous and tantalising theatre. In 2016, the collective was awarded the prestigious International Ibsen Award.

Etchells' work often explores themes such as language, communication, and the relationship between performer and audience. His performances have been presented on major stages and festivals worldwide. Invited by NTGent, Etchells now creates the fifth part of the series Histoire(s) du Théatre. The Brit follows in the footsteps of Milo Rau, Faustin Linyekula, Angélica Liddell and Miet Warlop.

Want to know more?

Together with Alexander Devriendt of Ontroerend Goed, NTGent traveled to London a few weeks before the premiere of How Goes the World  to talk to Tim Etchells about his new performance, the pros and cons of hours of talk, making theatre with as little material as possible, and the importance of keeping actors captive.