The Wexner Center for the Arts and CAPA continue bringing innovative theater and dance we’re not likely to see anywhere else to Columbus, with the first U.S. tour of acclaimed, Ghent-based troupe Ontroerend Goed’s Are we not drawn onward to new erA landig at the Davidson Theatre in the Riffe Center for two performances, on January 25 and 26.
In 20 years of making groundbreaking theater around the world, Ontroerend Goed made their name with work that altered the audience relationship to the theatre in tangible, physical ways, including placing audience members in wheelchairs and restraints (The Smile Off Your Face) and making them vote actors out of the narrative (Fight Night). This new piece with the palindromic name is a time-traveling allegory, a look at the impact we people make on the world. The Guardian was “dazzled by the company’s clever conceit.” The New York Times said, “The ensemble works with incredible precision, selling gestures and movements that might otherwise seem bizarre or arbitrary. Nothing here is arbitrary.”
I had the pleasure of talking with director Alexander Devriendt via zoom as the company prepared for the Brooklyn Academy of Music run.
Columbus Underground: Tell me a little bit about the company. I’m sure I’m going to pronounce it wrong, Ontroerend Goed.
Alexander Devriendt: [winces, shakes his head, then smiles] No. When we came up with this name, we didn’t realize that it’s unpronounceable in any other language than Dutch. Even the Germans or the French, they can’t pronounce it. I think that the Chinese are better at pronouncing [it].
We started as a group of friends who wanted to do something when we were really young. I think what always defined us is that we saw theater as a sort of place where experiments with form are free and possible. I’m the artistic director, but sometimes we call ourselves a compatible collective.
I think we always want to make shows or content that challenges your worldview maybe and challenges our own worldview as well, both content-wise and formal-wise. For instance, if you put somebody in a wheelchair, an audience member, and drive him or her or them alone for half an hour, it opens up a world of possibilities, and there’s something else possible in a way of thinking or way of feeling. So that would be 20 years of [work], what I could try to say in a couple of sentences.
CU: Do you still find new ways to tweak or adjust the form 20 years in? Or do you find it’s harder to come up with new or novel approaches?
DA: Yeah, I never had an issue with that. It’s easier to talk in specifics, maybe.
For instance, at a certain time in Belgium, we were without a government for a very long time, and people started to question democracy. So we feel like, why do we vote? We wanted to make something about that: Why is it necessary to vote? Maybe it’s good not to vote and fight the system. Is there an option? You have these issues and these questions, and you think, “Okay, let’s do something.” And then [we] have the idea, what if the audience can vote the actors offstage?
Not as a talent show, but as a sort of political show, but it feels like this game show. It’s impossible in any other medium than theater. You can do it on television, of course. But the immediacy of being in a room [is different]: people looking at you, knowing that these people can vote you offstage, and knowing that you can look into the eyes of somebody who wants you not there.
There’s a beauty in the live experience of theater for me. [Another example is,] my father died a couple of years ago and when I organized and was at the funeral, I felt that there was a sort of collective consoling. So we looked at [that feeling], can we make that in a theater show and then look at the possibilities? Let’s try to make in this theater a ritual, maybe more than a performance. And that freedom is always there.
Look, when it’s not necessary to challenge the form, and the content just guides us, that’s okay. But I think what unites us is this black box. And I’m not talking about the black box on stage. I’m talking black box [including] proscenium and auditorium: you take everything out and just leave the black box there, or white box, whatever you want to call it. It has endless possibilities, and any other medium can have a place in there. [For writing,] the form and the two-dimensional paper that you’re stuck to is limiting for me. And I have the same [problems] with movies, the canvas you project on doesn’t feel like the big freedom I have in theater. But the downside is, of course, you can reach fewer people, but you give them maybe something that is more immediate, more present.
CU: Could you tell me a bit about the piece and its themes?
AD: I think it’s about our impact on the world. Can we take away our stamp on the world? That’s not the word…footprint is maybe too literal. Can we go back in time? Can we give things up in order to make the world livable? Of course, climate change is immediately there. But I think what works about the show is that it’s not explicitly about [that]. It doesn’t need to say the word.
But it is about people entering a world on stage and having an influence on it. And then seeing them trying to take that influence away. As an inspiration, I used the Easter Island story: people arrive on a very remote island, cut off trees, and start to build things. [Maybe] then they see that maybe they have an influence on our environment, or they don’t realize it, that doesn’t matter. And just Easter Island exists, and the statues [are left]. Some people see a big story of climate change, but it’s also a story about humanity and its relation to the rest of the world.
CU: What was the development process like? How do you write and conceive this kind of a piece?
AD: We were talking about movies and having the sort of discussion [you and I are] having now; what is the advantage of film and theater? And what is impossible? And why, Alexander, don’t you want to make a movie?
At a certain point, we had the idea of what if we do something on stage and we, record it, and then we show it the other way around? What if we play something in reverse? Then immediately, somebody said, “Yeah, and we build something, and then in reverse, it looks like we deconstruct it.”
Then in the same breath, I think somebody mentioned the tree. What if we just film how you break down the tree? And then how does that look when you look at it backward, as if you build a tree? And yeah, it was there. It was just a beautiful idea. Sometimes you have these ideas like, “We just have to take care of this one.” But from the moment the tree was mentioned, the idea of climate change in your mind is there. You don’t even have to mention it anymore.
Then, of course, you have to do it, when you have to talk backward because we knew we wanted to do it live, not recorded. It has to have the feeling: if you laugh as an audience, or if you see something go wrong, you know I was there, I saw it.
So we started building it. We started creating this world. But I realized when I was creating the beginning of the show in rehearsals, “Shit, this has to be my ending as well.” That metaphor, that feeling of creating, was mind-blowing but also just joyful. That felt really beautiful. It gave a purpose.
Immediately, I also realized the accompanying sound: The Disintegration Loops [by William Basinski].
CU: He used to be based in Brooklyn, near where you’re talking to me from, but he’s been in LA for a while. What led you to that music? It’s beautiful.
DA: I discovered it, I think, through Pitchfork. At a certain moment, I think Pitchfork said out of the blue this record [was given Best New Music and a 9.4 rating]. I remember it. I was like, “What is this?” And immediately think it’s the best music piece in the world. It’s unbelievable.
So we reached out to him, and we talked about the project, and I asked him, “Is it okay if I [use the] 30-minute classical version?” Because I knew at the remembrance of 9/11, he did [a classical arrangement by Max Moston] with the Wordless Music Orchestra. That’s the piece I brought to the company. You had the construction and the deconstruction. The disintegration was immediately there. I wanted something that does honor to that music. In a way, you could say that the second piece of the play is basically a video accompanying beautiful music.
CU: This piece premiered and played in several countries before COVID, did the pause or the current climate necessitate any changes?
DA: It really survived. I had masks at the end of the show, and in the middle of the show. People are wearing masks to guard themselves against something. When we replayed the show immediately after Covid, it felt timely. I was lucky. Sometimes you make something that feels it connects, and that’s why I think it also has this big tour. Some shows feel specific for a time or a region. For instance, we made a show about money that really had a beautiful run in Australia and China but never reached America. And this one feels like it connects to a lot of places.
CU: You mentioned wheelchairs, is there that kind of audience participation in this piece?
AD: Sometimes we’re called an interactive theater group, but that starts with challenging form for me. When you’re challenging form and you’re looking for new ideas, the interactive aspect is always around the corner. But I don’t like interactive theater necessarily. Sometimes it just feels like a workshop or using an audience who’s like, “Ah, don’t bother me, I just want to watch a show.”
I only do it when I feel it adds to the content. When, as an audience member, you feel invited and guided and not put in the spotlight or something like that. For instance, the latest show I made is called Funeral, and it’s just a sort of ritual I invite you to do together. But again, not necessary, not obligatory; it’s just an invitation.
With this show, it wasn’t necessary. I think the construction of watching the show and you see the reverse, as an audience, at a certain point you know what’s happening, so you start doing the work. Seeing and trying to make it work backwards. That’s maybe the biggest interactive piece that you can have in any medium. So no, [more overt interactivity] is not here.
CU: Could you talk a little bit about the tour? What do places like the Wexner Center, the Walker, BAM, mean to a troupe like yours?
AD: I’m influenced a lot by America, by the United States. So for me, it’s always a joy. For instance, remember when I said that show about democracy and voting the people off stage? American politics was really guiding me in creating that piece. So for me, it feels nice to perform there.
It feels like Anglo-Saxon culture more than France, although that’s closer, has always inspired me. I studied American literature instead of theater. My bookshelf is only American literature. So for me, it feels like a nice place to connect. And I hope [the piece] won’t feel too continental, but I don’t think it does.
But [the United States is] also far away, and it’s hard to build up a regular [rotation]. I think sometimes, with theater when you look at the work of a writer or director; it’s seeing their other works that make you see connections more and understand more. So in that way, it’s a bit more about the show than about the creator.
But maybe that can change; maybe this show will help. I’m grateful for a big tour like that. And I think everybody’s really looking forward to it. Not only New York, because New York is like, of course, New York [for artists]. I haven’t been to Columbus, but I remember in the past, when I was in Vancouver or in Chicago or wherever, I think it’s fascinating to see all these different cities. Sometimes from Europe, you look at America a little bit like, “Ah, America?” The cliches. But I’ll be honest; I find it a very fascinating and inspiring country.
Ontroerend Goed’s Are we not drawn onward to new erA has two performances at the Davidson Theatre at the Riffe Center, 77 S. High St. Downtown, on January 25-26. For more information and tickets, visit wexarts.org/performing-arts/ontroerend-goed.