Under the Volcano
Guy Cassiers
Dates
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Time & Date
Information
Tickets
15, 20, 25, 28, 42, 52 €
Concs 10, 15 €
Duration
2 hours & 10 minutes
With Greek surtitles
Introduction
Guy Cassiers, renowned for his theatrical adaptations of literary works, travelled to Mexico to film the actual surroundings in which the events described in Malcolm Lowry’s novel took place.
In its postmodern form, theatrical direction is more concerned with recreating the world in a self-contained way than with rendering it faithfully. In this, it has been bolstered by the guilt-free assimilation of the electronic image. The art of the Belgian director Guy Cassiers (b. 1960) is very much in this mould.
In "Under the Volcano", a play based on Malcolm Lowry’s novel of the same title and staged at the Toneelhuis (2009), the filtering and reconstruction of reality is based on a melding of graphics and an authentically theatrical aesthetic. For the work, which relates the fall of an alcoholic consul on the Day of the Dead in Mexico on the eve of World War II , Cassiers and Josse De Pauw, who wrote the adaptation and plays the lead role, travelled to Mexico to film the environment in which the actual events took place. The result: a stage flooded with images of the exotic landscape processed to reproduce the consul’s illusory mental world. As the novel’s plot recedes, it makes way for a fragmentary sequence of images; while the actors sometimes disappear into the imagery and sometimes stand out from it, they are shrouded in a veil of loneliness throughout which accentuates the imaginary nature of the characters they play, all of whom have emerged from the memory of the narrator, Monsieur Laruelle.
The set recreates the desperate, intoxicated inner journey of the British consul, Geoffrey Firmin—played superlatively by Albert Finney in John Huston’s film—as he teeters for the last time between the “shakes of too little and the abyss of too much”, between heaven and hell, between his vital need for love and his rapid decline into loneliness and death.
Βased on the novel by Malcolm Lowry.
Guy Cassiers (1960), Toneelhuis’ artistic director, has developed a very personal language for the theater in which technology has the rather surprising effect of deepening one’s emotions. He combines his fascination with technology with a passion for literature. Highlights include "Bezonken rood" (Sunken Red, 2004) based on the novel by Jeroen Brouwers, and the four-part Proust cycle (2002-2004). There is a growing international appreciation for his work. Cassiers’ theater projects in the next few years reflect a growing interest in European history and the realization that we are perched on a fault line.
Actor, author, and theater director, Josse De Pauw began his career in 1976 with Radeis International, a successful Flemish theater group that traveled across Europe and overseas. Since 1985 he has worked independently and in collaboration with numerous directors, actors, visual artists, composers, and musicians. He has also begun to write plays, sometimes for himself, but also for others. In 1989 he acted in his first major film role and since then has performed in over 50 Belgian and international films. He has directed two films: "Vinaya and Übung". De Pauw also writes fiction, brief observations, and travel stories.In the theatre he has worked with well-known directors such as Jürgen Gosh, Guy Cassiers, Jan Ritsema, Jan Decorte, Jan Lauwers and Luc Perceval. But most of all he is the creator of and actor in successful pieces.
After-performance talk with Guy Cassiers, Josse De Pauw and Erwin Jans
25 February 2011 | 23:00 | Main Stage
Language: English/Greek
