On the occasion of 10 years of music theatre De Kolonie (2018), the founders, Peter De Graef (author/actor/director) and Bo Spaenc (multi-instrumentalist/composer), published a book in which they described music theatre as follows: "An art form that is all too often reduced to theatre with a dash of music, while the term itself implies an equal standing of both disciplines." This production amply proves that point.
Your turn
Corona put the actors' and musicians' guilds on hold. However, nothing to do is not the creed of De Kolonie, and certainly not of Warre Borgmans. There was also no bewilderment or despair in the ranks. Bo Spaenc, artistic director of Music Theatre De Kolonie, knew that Warre Borgmans, with his unique talent for turning peculiar situations into clever texts, had accumulated plenty of material and suggested he compose music around it.
Text sets his musical fantasy in motion. He assembled eclectic material. In the calm and with double the energy and playfulness, work began on a new production in a bubble of three people: a born storyteller and two sound wizards.
The title already contains a cheeky wink: 'In Topvorm'. For this, they brought together quality people: all-round performer and eloquent speaker Warre Borgmans, accordionist Gwen Cresens, a man of many musical styles from Bach to Grieg to Piazolla with his own Sexteto Tanguedia. At home on virtually every stage and in every musical genre, and of course Bo Spaenc himself. The rehearsal process began, was completed, and a premiere would follow: corona or no corona. So it happened for an almost empty hall. In the hall, about ten people including a couple of reviewers. Warre, Gwen and Bo, a triumvirate that approaches the world unabashedly and loves to catch everyone off guard.
Flanders has many good actors, but as a born storyteller, Warre Borgmans stands head and shoulders above the rest with his natural talent and charisma. It's as if he makes everything up on the spot. In the rehearsal process, he lets the material tumble over itself, stretch and extend until he has found the perfect rhythm. 'In Topvorm' is once again a strong combination of a well-constructed performance with hilarious anecdotes, striking images, and at the same time the audience is intellectually challenged by the narrative thread, with a parable from Ancient Greece to the present day. The stage is for Borgmans a tumbling mat with alternating somersaults, flips and twists at top speed one after another. An actor with theatre-filling energy. Live music is the driving force and counterpart of the top actor.
Scenic
They play with an open curtain. The CC Berchem has a very spacious stage. When you enter the hall, you see almost a jungle of instruments and microphones on one side of the stage and centrally positioned and along the other side stands a somewhat forlorn table with a chair beside it. Above it all hang seven old chandeliers. At a slow pace, three men enter the stage, businessmen in tailcoats and hats. Travellers who strand somewhere. They look like lost characters from a Beckett play.
Performance
Gwen Cresens conjures a deep, sonorous sound from his accordion that is reminiscent of a didgeridoo. Warre Borgmans takes centre stage at the front, closes his eyes with his arms receptively wide open and lets the muses come to him: the goddess of beauty, of love… Bo Spaenc plays the xylophone, together with the accordion a melancholic melody rings out and the narrator draws the audience along and an idyllic story unfolds.
Everything moves, everything stimulates the thought process of the narrator and the music. What makes watching Borgmans so captivating is his distinctive gesture, the underlining of his words with gestures and his disarming roguish mimicry. Like a grasshopper, carried by the vibe of the music, he repeatedly dives into different stories: health gurus and health supplements are dissected, great journeys are made via the Netherlands to Scandinavia, peppered with childhood memories.
Lighting and music create an ünheimliche atmosphere when an incident, a repressed childhood trauma, bubbles back up from the depths and crevices of memory. Between the stories, the music takes over and guides other tonal colours and tempi the audience to the next story. Poems by among others Guido Gezelle pass by alongside caramel verses. Clever is the parody of a drunk high brow English actor, followed by a spicy story in the consulting room of a urologist. Hilarious!
Often there is a fine coordination of music and text. Via detours and roundabouts we end up in Oude God and the gentlemen sing side by side a song that is reminiscent of the repertoire of the late Wannes Van de Velde. In the passage with the petition letters, Warre Borgmans reveals himself as a torrent of speech, the reading of the first letters proceeds slowly and leisurely but the tempo builds up, the words tumble over each other at a raging pace like a wild mountain river after a downpour. The music too becomes a whirlwind of sounds. At the end of the ride, Warre Borgmans still gets lost in Greek mythology with Odysseus on the island of Ithaca. Of course, he gives his own twist to this story.
Odysseus has himself chained to the mast of his boat to arm himself against the seductive sirens. What Borgmans wrings from his bark, you have to see. Meanwhile, Gwen Cresens and Bo Spaenc are not idle. Many instruments are deployed. Gwen Cresens: accordion is central, the instrument of many cultures, besides that he also plays guitar and harmonica with bellows pipe. Bo Spaenc: xylophone, piano with bellows, percussion up to a minuscule barrel organ. The music is as varied as the stories presented, from lounge music to spicy tangos.
The narrative line jumps from pillar to post, but is shaped by the music into a consistent whole in a fascinating balancing act. It is like a mosaic with many pieces and colours that together form a beautiful overall picture. Together, this triumvirate shakes a hall awake with an energetic boost. What Warre Borgmans still physically achieves at his 65th, he runs and jumps across the stage as if the approaching spring awakens the mischief in him, and performs verbal-technical stunts on stage. There is only one word for that: Class! All of this by the grace of two top musicians / sound wizards who accompany him with pleasure and verve and propel him forward.
This performance asks to be performed and seen. Not for a handful of people. If it is not immediately for a full hall, then at least for a half-full hall and preferably a bit more.
- WHAT: In Topvorm by Muziektheater De Kolonie
- WHO: Warre Borghmans - performance, text & concept, Bo Spaenc – composition, concept and live music, Gwen Cresens - live music, Chris Snik – costumes, Sam Bogaerts - occasional coach, Dries Bellinckx - form, light, sound
- WHERE & WHEN: Premiere without audience, 19 February 2021, CC Berchem
- PHOTOS: © Jan Marchand