The New City Company

Early bird price 11 euros A sunny, weekday morning. Two students take weapons out of their school bags during the lunch break and commit a true bloodbath in the school library and the canteen. Immaculata Revisited follows the story of four young people during the last night (and morning) of their lives. They talk about young happiness. Or unhappiness. About joyful expectations. Or the lack thereof. But in the background, the approaching footsteps of armed fellow students invariably sound, on their way to abruptly put an end to all that wonder about this life. A rhythmic text from 2004 based on documentary material of the high school shootings in Columbine and Erfurt. Fast forward to now: in our times of online hate and radicalization, 1 in 3 suspects in Belgian terror files turn out to be minors. Disturbing. Twenty years after the original performance, Het Nieuwstedelijk re-examines the text with a new generation of actors. In the press (2004) “It is impressive how so many images can be evoked, with such striking sobriety of means and style. That is really tough stuff.” (Radio 1) “Instead of liters of fake blood or cheap psychological explanations, the Leuven company uses a rhythmic way of telling that suggests a lot, but nowhere has the pretension to expose possible causes. You don't see the blood flowing, you feel it.” (De Morgen) “First we see four unsuspecting young people, attracted by the night, to each other or just hopelessly solitary. Then they are in the eye of the storm. Everything is futile. A bullet is coming at them. They see themselves bleeding. There is the amazed realization that they are dying. That fateful scene stands out. In terms of content, the tension rises to the top, but also in terms of form, it is the most marked. The rhythm is driven up, the four actors alternate their monologues faster, music and acting reach an ultimate entanglement.” (De Standaard)