Peeping Tom Vader. GREC’14

The company that won over audiences at Grec 2012 with the acclaimed production 32 rue Vandenbranden now brings the first part of a new dance and theatre trilogy about fathers, mothers and children to Barcelona.

For men improve with the years;
And yet, and yet,
Is this my dream, or the truth?
William Butler Yeats

Vader is set in the visiting area of an old-folks home whose towering walls accentuate the fact that the action takes place deep underground. At the centre of this netherworld, somewhere between the world of the living and the dead, stands the figure of the father, who seems to be distancing himself gradually from the human community. His fading is drawn, not from the story of one individual, but from the mythology of the father, and in scenes that explode into action, and just as suddenly stop, this figure appears at once as God-like and ridiculous, as possessed of a rich mental life, and as disconnected, decaying, empty. His past may harbour a deep secret, or maybe he is simply mad or delusional. The other residents and the staff wonder at him, regarding him with amusement and hatred, affection and indifference. The piece plays on the widening gap between perception and reality, on the way time for the old appears to slow down so as to correspond to the lagging rhythm of their gestures, or articulate speech is received as static and music as noise, or the world itself seems to make sense only insofar as it is the embodiment of a memory. With poignancy and wit, Vader explores the moment when the memories (or are they fancies, hallucinations?) of an old man, a sort of latter-day Don Quixote, constantly threaten to tip the realities of daily life into fantasy.

Coproduction: Grec 2014 Festival de Barcelona, Theater im Pfalzbau (Ludwigshafen, Germany), Royal Flemish Theatre- KVS (Brussels, Belgium), Hellerau European Center for the Arts (Dresden, Germany), Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg (Luxembourg), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris; France), La Maison de la Culture (Bourges, France), La Rose des Vents (Villeneuve d’Ascq, France) and Le Printemps des Comédiens (Montpellier, France).
With the support of Sommerszene, Szene Salzburg (Salzburg, Austria)
Peeping Tom wishes to thank Héloïse da Costa, Blandine Chartier and Seniorencentrum  Brussel vz.
With the support of The Flemish authorities.

Direction Franck Chartier
Direction and dramaturgy assistance Gabriela Carrizo
Creation and interpretation Leo De Beul, Marie Gyselbrecht, Hun-Mok Jung, Simon Versnel, Maria Carolina Vieira, Yi-Chun Liu and Brandon Lagaert, with the support of Eurudike De Beul
Artistic assistance Seoljin Kim, Camille De Bonhome
Sound composition Raphaëlle Latini, Ismaël Colombani, Eurudike De Beul, Renaud Crols

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