Five Easy Pieces: Belgium’s Most Notorious Killer Meets Young Performers on Stage

Description

Five Easy Pieces by Milo Rau/International Institute of Political Murder/CAMPO is a profound, funny and confronting performance that probes the limits of what children know, feel, and do.

Using performers aged under 13, and the biography of Marc Dutroux, the country’s most notorious criminal, Five Easy Pieces sketches a brief history of Belgium whilst reflecting on the (re)presentation of human feelings on stage and revealing the emotional and political absurdities of the adult world.

In five simple exercises, short scenes and monologues, the young actors sneak into different roles–a police officer, Dutroux’s father, one of the victims, the parents of a dead girl. These at times disturbing scenes unfold against a projected backdrop showing key moments from Belgium’s history, addressing questions and moral issues. How can children understand the real significance of empathy, loss, old age, disappointment, or rebellion? What does it mean for adults to observe them in these scenes? And what does it say about our own fears, desires and taboos?

Five Easy Pieces is performed as a part of the Hong Kong International Black Box Festival, a theatre festival curated and presented by the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre and West Kowloon Cultural District.

The performance is in Dutch with Chinese and English subtitles.