Yesterday in Amsterdam enjoyed open-mouthed and with every fibre of my body the brilliant Passions humaines, a play by theatre-makers who are true masters of the arts: Guy Cassiers, Erwin Mortier and their cast. Impressive, breathtaking and inspirational. Beautiful script, beautiful language, beautiful execution. May the Belgians come and may the Belgians perform! You know what beauty is... for the eye, for the ear and for the heart.
- I. Dingemans on 16.06.2015
I give the play 5 stars! I really enjoyed it. And had the opportunity to see the sculpture, albeit years ago.
- Elly Drillich on 09.06.2015
One of the finest plays – if not the finest – I have seen this year. I was particularly intoxicated by Mortier’s language and by Cassiers’ clever staging, not to mention the subject itself – that magnificent marble group sculpture and the powerful, erotic fantasies it evokes, and the narrow-minded reactions to it – plus the spontaneous bilingualism which is so characteristic of Belgium.
- Willy Schuyesmans on 03.06.2015
A magnificent, haunting and revelatory play! As far as I’m concerned, Flemish and Walloon theatre-makers can join forces as often as they like to bring so much beauty to the stage.
- Jacques Van den Bergh on 01.06.2015
For me this play was pure enjoyment, so deliciously Belgian in all its aspects, from small-mindedness to anarchy to monarchism to grand ideas about architecture, art and literature. And then that bilingualism! It affected me in a light-hearted, but lasting way. I have now written a new novel which also deals with our Belgian bilingualism. I enjoyed Erwin Mortier’s script enormously too. Powerful, poetic and full of humour, wisdom and melancholy. Our theatre is still is alive and kicking, the collaboration with our French-speaking fellow countrymen gives added value. Should happen more often.
- Elisabeth Marain on 01.06.2015
After several days still reeling from this fantastic play in which the perfect symbiosis between set, script, acting and atmosphere leave you nonplussed and longing for more. Apart from the successful symbolism of what happens on stage, what touched me most was the analogy between the creation by the sculptor of an unsurpassed artwork from a block of marble and the creation by a group of first-rate actors and theatre-makers of a wonderful stage production with an empty sheet of paper and a three-dimensional space. Bravo!
- Rudi De Roeck on 24.05.2015
What a clever literary, art-historical story. Art as the nub with a dash of politics. Beautiful dramatic compositions with some unforgettable images. Gripping interplay between art and politics, man and woman, duty and passion, the megalomaniac and his ‘possession’. Rarely have I been so moved, so dumbfounded by a play, or laughed as much.
- Geertje Wets on 23.05.2015
The first hour I sat rather uneasily shifting around on my seat. Theatre, I thought, with actors and stuff, and a script, and costumes. My body fought a battle with my mind to go on sitting.
But suddenly all that changed. I don’t know why exactly, but suddenly I got into it. The characters held my attention, the script had me hooked. I was really moved by the apotheosis, later, when the Bourla seemed to cave in. Then I was reminded of that Wednesday afternoon as a teenager, at the end of Apocalypse Now. It affected me for days.
This time it wasn’t days, but it did grab me by the throat. Suddenly I understood the beauty. And the ugliness around it. And then not wanting to see anyone, speak to anyone, but get outside and inhale the darkness, the evening. Grateful for so much beauty, I cycled home.
- Jan De Palmeneire on 18.05.2015
