After the daring 1095 (2017) and the controversial Hamlet (2018), Lisaboa Houbrechts is again plunging into history with Bruegel.

1095 took us to the dark world of the Crusades, while the loose adaptation of Hamlet was a surprising family portrait, sometimes intimate, other times frenzied. Lisaboa always challenges her performers to adopt varied styles of playing that are allowed to grate and clash.

With Bruegel, Lisaboa Houbrechts has written a kaleidoscopic portrait of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the era in which he created Dulle Griet. In this production, the character taking the viewer on a trip through time is Dulle Griet, a woman who is denigrated as a ‘battle-axe’ because she supposedly steals objects for hell. But what if she is not stealing those objects but actually trying to save them? Lisaboa Houbrechts’ narrative is based on those lost objects.

Bruegel is performed by a magnificent cast consiting of Rand Abou Fakher, Louise Bergez, Lobke Leirens, Romy Louise Lauwers, Andrew Van Ostade, who plays Pieter Bruegel, and Anne-Laure Vandeputte in the role of Dulle Griet (Mad Meg). 

Late-medieval madrigals, sung by the French polyphonic ensemble Harmonia Sacra, establish a connection with the compositions of kamancheh player Mostafa Taleb. 

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Lisaboa Houbrechts:
“Stories about our history are hidden behind closed doors. They have been manipulated, rubbed out, forgotten or reduced to a clear and simple event. With Bruegel, therefore, I am building a big web around a number of hypothetical objects that have come down to us from the Low Lands, a region which at the time was torn by religious conflict, famine and the slow eruption of the Little Ice Age. I take a specific look at Bruegel’s work, the relation between the personal, the political and the Golden Age – an era that rose up like a tidal wave and dramatically splashed down further ahead.”