GALAPAGOS | Abattoir Fermé

Welcome to the dungeons of an old hotel, where the ground floor stinks and there is loud praying at night. Four guests get lost there in a hinterland of conspiracy theories and end-time scenarios, of sexual neuroses, identity crises, and an excess of information. Who am I? What is ‘normal’? Which reality is ‘real’? If the CIA brainwashes people and clones and artificial intelligence are no longer science fiction, what certainties remain? At the beginning of the new millennium - long before conspiracy thinkers went mainstream or ‘gender’ became, let's say, a thing - Abattoir Fermé Galapagos created a piece of ‘existential horror theater’ that raged like a storm through the Flemish stage landscape. Almost 25 years later, Abattoir Fermé revives this intense classic about themes that have only become more urgent since then. Recognizable, disruptive, moving, hilarious, and unforgettably played by two top-class actors. In the press: “An unbridled phantasm that reminds one of paintings by Bosch, Breughel, and Ensor.” - SELECTION THEATER FESTIVAL “Abattoir Fermé signs for beauty that only makes itself known amidst the dirt and uncertainty. Between the fear and the mild perversion, like a flower on a dung heap.” - DE STANDAARD, 2004 Text & direction: Stef Lernous • cast: Steve Geerts & Tine van den Wyngaert • technique: Aaron Bruyninckx • production: Abattoir Fermé / arts center nona • with the support of the Vlaamse Gemeenschap and city of Mechelen