Taming the wild beast: an Interview with the Belgian Theatre Collective FC Bergman (original) (raw)

2021, European Journal of Theatre and Performance

‘Our performances are wild beasts that need to be tamed.’ Talking are actors, artists, and makers Stef Aerts, Joé Agemans, Thomas Verstraeten, and Marie Vinck , who make up the relatively young Belgian theatre collective FC Bergman. Indeed, their larger-than-life productions consist of ambitious scenographic installations in which visual voluptuousness gilts stories of ever struggling and stumbling human beings. In this interview, we ask them about their inspirations, their creative processes, and their work as a collective in an increasingly individualised theatre landscape. The four members and theatre scholars Hanne Roofthooft and Edith Cassiers meet at a time when, because of the SARS-Covid-19 pandemic, all the theatre houses are closed. Nonetheless, behind the closed doors of Toneelhuis, the Antwerp municipal theatre that FC Bergman is affiliated to, something is stirring on stage. FC Bergman presented their new performance, The Sheep Song, there a few days before this interview — not to a public audience, but rather to a handful of staff members. The performance is finished (insofar as a performance can ever be finished) and is ready to be shown to the public as soon as live shows become possible once more.