Maaike Neuville and Roy Aernouts about Op een bankje, op een dag

Maaike, you were already a prominent voice in the protests against cultural cuts, and that was pre-corona. How have you experienced these past months?

MN “The only positive takeaway from both crises is that they inspire people to take action. The lockdown also increased my creativity. I have been writing for some time – from scripts to stage monologues and poems – and in recent months I have been focusing more intensely on my writings. While talking to Michael De Cock about Madame Bovary, the conversation landed on this text, which has been on my shelf for a few years. I like the idea that there’s a right time for everything. Because KVS resolutely decided to adjust its plans for this autumn, everything came together nicely. I intended for Op een bankje, op een dag to be performed on an actual bench outside. I had even imagined the KVS back square as the location, and now it’s actually happening. It’s impressive that KVS was able to adjust to the situation so quickly, even though theatre projects, like films, usually have to jump through all sorts of hoops before they can be executed.”

RA “A quicker process can be a blessing too. By working more intuitively and impulsively, the urgency of what you are doing becomes more tangible, and you are more closely approaching the ‘now’ that is so important in theatre.”

Op een bankje, op een dag is the second part of what might become a trilogy, after Twee mensen praten ... misschien, which you performed together in 2010. How did your artistic bond originate, and what would you consider the overarching elements of the trilogy?

RA “There were no men in Maaike’s final year at Studio Herman Teirlinck, so I was asked to play a male role in Mooi by Gerardjan Rijnders, which her class was set to perform. We had an immediate click, and later played together in the tv series Katarakt. Then Maaike wrote Twee mensen praten ... misschien. Her texts are a way for us to get together again to think and talk about certain themes."

"I could once again experience how Maaike has moulded a stream of consciousness in a rather associative, but also musical and rhythmic way, resulting in a text that feels very natural and pleasant to perform.”

MN “There’s a nice, free dynamic to the way we talk and perform together. It’s something I kept in mind while writing these two dialogues. Relationships are at the core of both. Twee mensen praten ... misschien was about two people who decided to tell each other everything, so it was about honesty. You might say that Op een bankje, op een dag shows what could be the consequences of that. It’s about longing, and the question of whether you should want to fulfil every longing. Two people decided as early twenty- somethings to stop seeing each other, until the next appointment twenty years later on the same bench. Their intention was to not get stuck on each other. But by not engaging at all – not as friends or as lovers – they have also made many things impossible. The fear of losing yourself by entering into a relationship with someone can also result in missing out on beauty and happiness.”

Is there an extra dimension to theatre when it is played outdoors?

MN “I have performed many times with Comp. Marius, who almost exclusively perform outdoors, and I love it. Both the audience and the performers appear more open to creating something unique together. Much of life is banned from a black box theatre; outdoors, you have to embrace everything that happens around you somehow. The performance is more embedded into the immediate reality.”

RA “I have also performed with Comp. Marius, amongst others with the North Sea as our backdrop – which totally drowned us out (laughs)."

"But if you can be part of your surroundings and everything works together, playing outdoors is one of the greatest things you can do. But we will also be using amplification, so we can keep our acting intimate.”

The performance also finds added tension in the intimacy of the two of you on that bench, and an entire audience watching you closely.

MN “We’ll occasionally break the fourth wall, and we won’t be able to control passers-by or what happens around us. So the performance will be a combination of things that are planned and things that aren’t. As a creator and performer, I like to be in that place where not everything is under control. It’s especially apt in this play, which is all about the desire for control and surrender. We have also chosen to invite a different musician for each performance, who is written into the play as a sort of busker. Which musician is a nightly surprise, and the way they will be interpreting the set music pieces will lend an unexpected element to every performance.”

Interview by Michaël Bellon