There is nothing new under the sun! Three companies from different performance disciplines: theater, visual theater and music have latched onto the Faust legend, the most important work of German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The Christian tradition of good and evil is weighed and measured in it. Faust allows himself to be seduced into a pact with the devil. This premise remains central, but Joris Van den Brande creates his own adaptation of it in a world that keeps growing and becomes harder to understand and is fertile with ideas. It is the ever-recurring horror and beauty that we as humans do not understand, but of which we are nevertheless part. Life in a nutshell: the everyday, exuberance, sensuality and spirituality. Joris Van den Brande fills the role of manipulator in devilishly cunning fashion.
Mathias Coppens composed a refined soundscape for it, delicate and noisy. Music for violin, harp, double bass, flute, accordion and slide trombone. The newly composed music reflects the inner world of the characters and supports the performance. Misty sound tapestries alternating with undulating rhythms.
A lack of ideas is certainly not an issue here. DE MAAN (visual theater) provided masks and puppets. The performance is played in an alternating style of virtuoso puppetry and colorful and intense storytelling. They manage quite well to channel that richness.
The performance starts with the curtain open. In diffuse lighting you see the musicians, the actors stand there nonchalantly and chat with each other. The set evokes images of a jazz cellar.
The actors, especially Ariane van Vliet and Greet Jacobs, who manipulates most of the puppets, make an impression. With unbridled fantasy and here and there some absurd humor, the characters are split in two. A large mask and hands that are manipulated create a character as if the character steps outside itself. A shadow puppet with larva-like fingers. Admirable, the minimal means with which an entirely new universe is created. The puppets and masks by Paul Contryn show his craftsmanship once again. Koen De Graeve characterizes in an endearing way the shy, clumsy, lovesick man with an oversized head.
'Faust' an auditory and visual performance. Not one that astounds but one where work has been done with fantasy, empathy and an eye for detail. This is especially evident in one of the final images. The large female mask is reduced to the head of a small puppet, the hands of Ariane van Vliet move like the large rigid hands of puppetmaker Paul Contryn. Only a handful of humanity remains.