HOUSEWARMING | Toon Acke, Kes Bakker, Anna De Graeve

Clara and Martin have just renovated their house. To celebrate, they invite their good friend Bernard. Proudly, they show him their new interior full of objects that oscillate between design and complete nonsense: from an antique leather pig, to an electric walnut peeler. Clara and Martin are up to date with the latest trends, their son is doing fantastic at school, their sex life is more exciting than ever. But they are worried about their friend, Bernard. He is a writer, but barely publishes. He works in a factory, has no exclusive music collection and does not want children. What starts as an apparently pleasant evening soon degenerates into a desperate search by the couple for the confirmation of their existence. But in that search, they are mercilessly confronted with the emptiness of their material and bourgeois life. HOUSEWARMING is a timeless satire about a couple having a conversation that is actually not a conversation. We see the dissection of two deeply unhappy people who are burdened by the suffocating expectations that society imposes on them. A couple that builds an identity based on what they possess, what they experience, what they wear... But what is such an identity worth if you have no one to show all that to? For HOUSEWARMING, Kes Bakker, Anna De Graeve and Toon Acke are inspired by authors such as Vaclav Havel, Thomas Bernhard and Milan Kundera. Triggered by the contemporaneity of the themes and ideas in the critical and humorous work of these authors, they wrote a new, self-written text. Concept, performance and text adaptation: Anna De Graeve, Kes Bakker and Toon Acke Coaching: Willem de Wolf & Carine van Bruggen Lichtontwerp: Gilles Pollak Techniek: Ilja van Vlierberghe Zakelijk and dramaturgical advice: Benoît Vanraes Theoretisch and dramaturgical advice: Kristof Van Baarle In collaboration with NTGent & KASK Drama Met thanks to Matterhorn VZW, de Roovers, tg STAN, Bardia Mohammad, Valerie Desmet, Frederik Le Roy, Simon De Winne, Arsenaal/Lazarus, LaGeste, Capture Management, HoGent