Maison Maeterlinck / Theater Immobiel | NTGent
15.12.22 29.01.23

Maison Maeterlinck / Theater Immobiel NTGent

Productiepg Mmt Michiel Devijver
Four strange beings from another time, enter an abandoned world. With childlike curiosity they explore it, begin to feel it, to revive it. What was the purpose of this (theatre) space? What role did the human play in it? And last but not least: is there a way out?
practical

tickets

15 - 28 euros

general info

✔ Performed in various languages
✔ Surtitles in Dutch & English
✔ This performance uses strobe and smoke effects

"Luz masters the language of theatre"
Johan Thielemans - Pzazz

This is the starting point for the production Maison Maeterlinck / Theater Immobiel. In his first Belgian production, the Swiss theatre artist Thom Luz deals with the forgotten son of the city of Ghent, the mystical symbolist and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck - with his short plays about the tragedy of everyday life and his (posthuman) theory of The Immobile Theatre (or, in Maeterlinck's sense, the immobile World). From Maeterlinck's best-known one-act plays (Intruder / The Blind / Interior) Luz composes a new narrative about the sense and nonsense of life, humans and theatre - three perspectives on the same (mystical) story, a foray through Maeterlinck's ambiguous cosmos. Musical, absurd, poetic.

At the same time, the staging is a study of Maeterlinck's theory of Immobile Theatre - on this longing for a moment of stillness and silence that characterised his view of theatre and of the world. (read more after the video)



In Maeterlinck's plays, the human being is seen as one of many equal elements rather than the centre of attention. Maeterlinck even goes so far as to wonder whether it might be necessary to keep all living things completely off the stage, in order to truly grasp the truth: Won’t the human being everywhere in the world be replaced by a shadow, a reflection, a projection of symbolic forms or by a being that acts like a living one without being alive?

With his extraordinary theatrical language that links silence, movement, text, and music-dense, atmospheric spatial scores, Luz seeks a contemporary interpretation of this immobile theatre. How prophetic are Maeterlinck's reflections in the midst of a society in constant motion?

"Theatre could serve to reassure the overly confused of this world - and to confuse the overly reassured of this world.” With this quote by Robert Walser, Luz describes his own theatre cosmos - a magical space in which he breaks up classical patterns of perception, allows new images to appear, and "gives comfort by creating strange splendour”. An idea that would certainly appeal to Maeterlinck, who has been called the "lost father of the Theatre of the Absurd”. From tragic to magic - in keeping with NTGent's 22/23 season motto.

"YOU LEAVE THE ROOM AS IF YOU WOKE UP AFTER AN INCOMPREHENSIBLE BUT GENTLE DREAM, WITH A GREAT DESIRE TO REREAD MAETERLINCK"
Els Van Steenberghe - Knack
credits

with

Marijke Pinoy, Olga Kunicka, Isaak Duerinck, Ewout Lehoucq

direction

Thom Luz

dramaturgy

Carmen Hornbostel, Kaatje De Geest

musical director

Mathias Weibel

set design

Frieda Schneider

costume design

An De Mol

direction assistant

Katelijne Laevens

production management

Klaas Lievens

trainee set design

Eden Van Kerrebroeck

coproducer

Muziektheater Transparant
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credits

with

Marijke Pinoy , Olga Kunicka , Isaak Duerinck , Ewout Lehoucq

direction

Thom Luz

dramaturgy

Carmen Hornbostel , Kaatje De Geest

musical director

Mathias Weibel

set design

Frieda Schneider

costume design

An De Mol

direction assistant

Katelijne Laevens

production management

Klaas Lievens

trainee set design

Eden Van Kerrebroeck

coproducer

Muziektheater Transparant
Until it holds from the inside With closed eyes, you can see whomever you’d like Only humans can fantasise Beyond madness, tenderness awaits There's all that future, still