In preparing my coverage of Theatre Festival Boulevard, I had also put 'interview with Elias de Bruyne' on my wish list. It didn't materialise, which is fortunate in retrospect, because Cornald Maas beat me to it. At least, Cornald Maas interviewed Elias de Bruyne during his performance 'Euhm... In 5 Acts', which premiered on Saturday 5 August.
OK, it is not the Real Cornald Maas we know as The Only Cultural Reporter of national television, but the Cornald Maas played with a touch of Ivo Niehe by Elias de Bruyne. That at the time of performance it proves difficult to be both the interviewer and the interviewee provides one of the better series of beautiful moments in this play, released under the banner of the Bossche Theatre Artemis.
Longest turnout ever
I now experienced Elias de Bruyne for the second time, and again it was a delight. Last year, he did "The performance with perhaps the longest attendance ever." and it was indeed the performance with the longest attendance I have ever experienced. Time we could use to lie in double. He might have been followed by "a play in which the grass grows a millimetre longer", but that was probably a bridge too far.
Although? It can always be more spectacular. Because Elias de Bruyne has ambition, he decided to change his subject to "the origins of the world and life". In case you think that might be a bit big for a thick hour of theatre, you don't know Elias De Bruyne. Rarely laughed so much at the Big Bang.
Additional load
Artemis wouldn't be Artemis if this show full of absurd slapstick and studied cockiness didn't also find a layer or two. Artistic director, and instigator of much clever stillness, Jetse Batelaan knows how to make the makers under his watch seek out just that extra charge, adding value to the absurdity. So there is a tragic angle to the toil of Elias de Bruyne, master interviewer Cornald Maas manages to extract from his reluctant interlocutor.
But perhaps that applies to all of us.
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