Mevrouw Bob is part of a series of challenging confrontations between Muziektheater De Kolonie and major theatrical personalities. De Kolonie always works with original material, both textual and musical.
Artist in residence, Peter De Graef, once again pulled a fluent text out of his sleeve with the typical De Graef stamp: sharp-witted and pointed. Mevrouw Bob is a lady with secrets. She has built a spectacular career on fragments, as a sort of revenge. In a ruthless climb upwards, all means are permitted and she delivers a few bold statements that are completely at odds with the #MeToo debate.
Let's be honest, women who build careers by catering to men and wrapping them around their fingers, that happens too. With a razor-sharp blade, the author dissects the world of high finance, democracy, and the media. The stigmatization of poor wretches. Money is still the best protection against discrimination! As a pharmaceutical lobbyist, Mevrouw Bob, so to speak, becomes stinking rich while sleeping. "Do I take an airplane… or do I buy one myself?" or "who drives around in the same Rolls Royce for two years?", with such statements she displays her powerful status.
Bo Spaenck, the founder of Muziektheater De Kolonie, composed beautiful, at times chilling music, performed live by himself and altviolist Marc Tooten. Music that supports and propels Tania Van der Sanden in a continuous interaction. She was coached in her performance by Sam Bogaerts, a man with a mega theatre career, who cannot be accused of creative indecisiveness. Together they refined the character and distilled an impressive and intriguing Mevrouw Bob with a distinctive dynamic. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. Artists from different disciplines create an iron-strong performance in a subtle, exuberant or tormented dialogue.
Tania Van der Sanden <> Mevrouw Bob
The two musicians form a sort of trinity with the performer and took their place on a raised platform, stage left and stage right, surrounded by fine gauze, a diffuse presence. Between the two boxes strides a lady with mysterious glamour, dressed entirely in emerald green: haute couture dress, luxurious hat (a link to Medusa?), high heels, earrings, rings, necklace, green nail polish. With her full, deep and warm voice, master storyteller Tania Van der Sanden immediately takes the audience along for the ride. A voice that can stroke like velvet but can just as easily dig in with barbs and tear.
The performance is full of contradictions: warm, acerbic, intense, challenging. Without hesitation, she displays her entire journey. An actress with presence. The stage is her habitat. Her body language reminds one of an octopus grasping everything within its reach with its tentacles. What must be thoroughly consumed is the moment. As the only woman in a basket full of powerful men, she learns the ruthless tricks to climb upwards. The hunger for more power and wealth clouds vision and undermines judgment… Until she is told she has only a few weeks to live. In a public confession, she makes a clean slate with something that has burdened her for years. The symbols of wealth and well-being fade, until she stands in her underwear. Her great love turned out to be one big disillusionment and she took cold-blooded revenge.
The music adds colorful extra depth to all these moods, the dimension that cannot be captured in language. It sometimes rages through like a hurricane or flutters playfully and spritely like a butterfly through the space. The entire staging is kept extremely sober, but that is precisely its strength. The text is delicious, the text projection, performance and singing of Tania van der Sanden is superb, the surrounding music completes the picture. A performance that captivates from beginning to end.
- WHAT: Mevrouw Bob
- WHO: Muziektheater De Kolonie and HERMESensemble, text Peter De Graef, performance Tania Van der Sanden, music Bo Spaenck and Marc Tooten
- WHERE & WHEN: October 3 at CC 't Bolwerk Vilvoorde
- PHOTOS: © Jan Marchand, © Pat Verbruggen, Herman Houbrechts
