Atelier

Build and demolish the fourth wall

Do playwrights – like sculptors and painters – have studios where they turn their ideas into material? And if so, what do these studios look like? What and where and how and when and why do they operate? Is it work? How do they sketch characters? What do they highlight? Are they tableaux? Are they their own and one another’s models? Are they a self-portrait?

Matthias de Koning, Damiaan De Schrijver and Peter Van den Eede pursue the research that they initiated in their masterful poly-co-production Vandeneedevandeschrijver-vandekoningendiderot. With a bi-frontal staging, they construct the fourth wall, and subsequently demolish it again. Welcome to this laboratory of naturalism, realism and hyperrealism!

Big windows that cast cold October light on our inner lives. Packaging air. Sanding planks. Eating potatoes. Boiling mussels. Peeing next to the urinal. Writing a farewell letter. Removing an appendix. Eating. Someone rings the doorbell. A door. A crack. A stain. A raft. Pitch-darkness. A raft.