It’s almost 12 years since I first encountered the work of Belgian theatre company Ontroerend Goed. That show was called Internal and it took place in a hotel in Edinburgh with a handful of others (somewhat ironically, one of them was the Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre, currently facilitating this presentation). I described it as speed dating followed by group therapy. This new ‘show’ is by necessity online, yet it seems to take me back full circle, with another one-to-one encounter at the heart of it, and the same delayed impact.
When I entered the online meeting room, Gunther from Belgium was there. We were shortly joined by Shug and Jan, also from Belgium, and a short while later Siemke from Norway, drinking a beer and eating what appeared to be twiglets, rather loudly. After an introduction to TM, some sort of global movement, I was face-to-face with my interviewer. The questioning, all about me, was quite intense, and occasionally uncomfortable. It was followed by an analysis by the interviewer. I was still digesting it when I found myself back in a group being presented with the TM manifesto, after which the screen population multiplied before they disappeared and left me alone. Well, until I noticed Siemke was still online, the only other participant I suspect.
You do need openness, curiosity and a sense of adventure to tackle a Ontroerend Goed show. In between Internal and TM, there was the presentation of teenage angst in a cube in Teenage Riot and a feminist polemic in Sirens, both more traditionally staged. Then there was £¥€$, live at the Almeida reconfigured as a sort of casino, a game or financial simulation, and A Game of You, where I was observed, interviewed, recorded and given a DVD of it all to take home and see myself how they saw me. There are few theatre companies as innovative and courageous and yet again I found myself thinking about it long after it ended and, in this case, for way longer than my 35 minutes online.
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