About the show

The director Guy Cassiers places his piece, Antígona in Molenbeek + Tiresias, in the Belgian immigrant neighborhood of Molenbeek, which attracted five years ago world media attention, because there lived the terrorist population who attacked France and Belgium or traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State. This show is a translation of Sophocles' characters to the present: Antigone, who wants to bury her dead brother, an ISIS suicide bomber, and Tiresias, a character whose identity slips from man into woman an into a blind seer. For the piece, conceived as two monologues, Stefan Hertmans and the young English slam poet Kae Tempest rewrote these classic myths in a contemporary idiom and placed them in an urban context, exposing from the present the repressed sexual, social and political prejudices of the society. In addition, to Cassiers is very important the use of visual technology, music plays and montage. The two narratives, each in their own way, enter into a dialogue with String Quartet No. 15 by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich.

About the Company

Guy Cassiers (b. 1960) has been the artistic director of Toneelhuis since 2006. His distinctive, extremely visual theatrical idiom has made him one of the most highly regarded creators of theatre in Europe. In his productions, he combines his great passion for literature with his fascination for the possibilities of visual technology. Together with his actors, he creates a sensory universe where music plays an increasingly important role. This has led to his interest in opera. Over the years, his growing fascination for European history and his interest in political themes such as migration have resulted in such noted productions as De welwillenden, Grensgeval and Het kleine meisje van Meneer Linh. He recreated the last of these productions in several other languages including English, “Monsieur Linh and His Child” and Spanish, “La nieta del Señor Linh."