Five artist from diverse disciplines share the stage for this little jewel by director Luk Nys, not the regular cast of Theater Stap. Three of them are blind, but most of all they are all mortal. Sad? No. Life with limitation (especially with death itself) is interpreted rather vitalisticly in Black Wrap. Jokes, little dances and songs give this encounter of five such an ease that the stage is turned into a playground, one giant rehearsal of interhuman exploration. Always at the edge of amateurism, things usually not done in the theatre. Sometimes it just looks absurd, like the clumsy acrobatics of Saïd Gharbi with soprano Noémie Schellens, reaching for the heights. But it's this carelessness that makes Black Wrap so special, so outside the usual points of reference. While 'wrong' in a lot of other performances is used ironically or kitschy, here it gives a framework to the vulnerability that stays disarmingly close to the performers. The performance doesn't grab us because of the blindness of the performers, but because of their childlike desire for life. Like in a Latino memorial service they mourn for what is no more, but most of all they celebrate the countless opportunities of enriching contact and collective liberation that remain. Beautiful, surprising.

(...) I: And then what did you see?
W: Well, after this opening scene you get a very diverse range of pieces of text. Jempie Vermeulen comes to the forefront and starts reciting the names of different cities, European cities, where he is supposed to have been. Paris keeps coming back. An old sweetheart of his lives there, whom he must have put on a pedestal. Next comes Filip Jordens, who talks about his own laziness, fatigue and that baudelairlike atmosphere comes back in a lot of text fragments, but the emphasis of the performance is mainly on the movement sequences in between. Yes, they try to dance, do gymnastics while this just isn't where they're at and this feels like sort of a ... They surrender themselves totally to vulnerability, to their own impotence together.
I: And where does this lead to?
W: To a surprising, cheerful performance. At certain moments ... You get a kind of playground feel with adults in one-legged cockfights or bumping into each other deliberately or trying to turn cartwheels. And this combination between a kind of darkness in the lines and the luminescence in the images is occasionally contrasted by a great fierceness. Saïd Gharbi for instance runs off with Vermeulen and taking his face in his hands and he suddenly throws him on the ground. These very different atmospheres, tones, it really is a jumble, in the performance, except for maybe just the helplessness they are almost consciously looking for and to which they surrender themselves fully, through which you get a very human show that really touches you and than mostly...
I: That is maybe what director Luk Nys tried to do? Because we also have to mention his name.
W: Yes, that's right. That surprised me the most. The last of his performances I saw was about being caught, being in prison. A very sterile show for such a subject, but this really is the opposite. It is a kind of vitality around death, as it can also sometimes be found in South-American funeral processions or a sort of celebration of limitations. There is nothing aesthetic about it, just the opposite. But this huge spontaneity is what makes it so moving. ... It all looks very amateurish, but it isn't. There is also an intercultural aspect to it, but that isn't what the show is about. You experience a very generous, warm, without it getting too cosy, performance about human exchanges, how to look head on at our difficult existence with a great belief in collective strength and our own possibilities.