A Theatre Divided: Brussels, Belgium

A Theatre Divided Brussels, Belgium Gautam Dasgupta In celebration of the 500th anniversary in 1980 of the founding of the city of Brussels, the Belgian Government mounted a lavish arts festival that included most of the fine and performing arts. The theatrical component of the affair was absorbed into the fairly well-established Europalia festival which, in prior years, had dedicated itself solely to the theatrical arts from one particular nation. The 1980 Europalia was turned over entirely to Belgian works as befitting the quincentennial spirit. Unfortunately for the foreign press, however, the festival was sharply divided in two halves-one catering to Flemish-language theatre, the other to French-and it was to the latter that I, among others in the press contingent, was invited. Thus, one came away with only a partial glimpse into the total theatrical situation as it exists in Belgium today. (My dismay was further compounded by reports from friends there that the Flemish half of their theatre had made remarkable strides in recent years and in its fervor to assert itself as a theatrical minority in the nation's overall artistic consciousness was drawing upon indigenous Belgian culture and thought to define its theatrical premise and experimentation.) Despite this unfortunate gap in what I gather was a logistical and scheduling (even perhaps a language-oriented) problem, I can only marvel at the organizational efficacy of the sponsors who not only made sure that we were all getting a fairly wide spread of their theatre (both traditional and avant-garde) but also arranging for private meetings with theatre artists and local critics. The ability to exchange ideas and, more importantly, the much126 needed forum to question and delve deeper into cultural politics and aesthetic issues was a rare and vital accomplishment by the festival organizers. In addition, I was particularly grateful to find that our itinerary included visits to specific art exhibits and other cultural events that, in their interplay with our theatre-going schedule, allowed for a fuller and more unique perspective on current Belgian theatre. To most of us in America, Belgian theatre comprises three early twentiethcentury dramatists-Maeterlinck, Crommelynck, and Ghelderode. What, if any, remains of their influence today can best be seen in the writings of an older generation of Belgian playwrights that include Paul Willems, Jean Sigrid, Georges Sion, Hugo Claus, Rene Kalisky, and a handful of others. They tend toward contemporary reworkings of classical myths (as in Georges Sion's La Matrone d'Ephese, performed with a satiric bent at Rideau de Bruxelles, a tiny theatre in a large complex that, in its programming , seems modeled after the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and functions as a lunchtime theatre) or symbolic plays (Paul Willems' La Ville i Voile, staged by Henri Ronse at the Theatre du Parc in a wispy, Magritte-like setting that lends an aura of magic and charm to this surreal drama of romance amidst a grotesque allegorical backdrop of revenge and dark humor). Although very much in the traditional vein, Ronse, who for years had a theatre in Paris and worked there in the opera, has now returned to his native Belgium to bring his particularly Belgian sensibility (formed by his fascination of the Belgian grotesque-vide painters Ensor, Khnopff, Paul Willems' LA VILLE A VOILE (Dir. Henri Ronse) 127 Delvaux, and Magritte, and, of course, the native Art Nouveau school) to bear on both.classical and contemporary plays. His ingenious theatricality, marked by both his love for the mise-en-scene that has characterized most significant theatre in recent years (Giorgio Strehler, Patrice Chereau, Peter Stein) and his acute understanding of the role of language and the human voice on stage, can now but only add strength to the diversity of Belgian theatre. The diversity, of course, is most evidently felt in the prolific experimentation that is being carried out in the fringes of mainstream activity. While some of it belongs to what one would consider here a more "classical" or '70s avant-garde (the influence of The Open Theater on Yves Vasseur's adaptation of Constant Malva's journal Ma Nuit au Jour was obvious), a lot of It partakes of a tradition that...