BELGIUM PERFORMANCE

The final segment of the Dear Children, Sincerely performance burst its way out of the confines of the theatre, and cajoled, persuaded and hauled the assembled audience out into the corridors, foyers and surrounds of the Mercury Theatre, to meet the Superheroes of Social Cohesion. This piece, directed by Frederique Lecomte and Ewout D’Hoore of Théâtre & Réconciliation, was performed by an intergenerational group of older and younger performers that had been sourced from local community theatre groups. Working to a concept that Frederique had deployed in Belgium and in her work in the Great Lakes region of Africa, the Superheroes here had all the answers to make us happy, make our worries disappear and to bring the joy of incongruity and irreconcilability to our attention. Armed with a theme-song (oddly to the tune of ‘Let it Snow’…) shiny brightly coloured capes and various plastic props, a bank of self-styled superheroes invited the audience to one-to-one encounters, where in a hubbub of chatter, laughter and anarchic singing, we helped to conjure our own spells for better living. This luminescent and playful finale to the performance helped to unite the audience in a happy perplexity before they milled off into the night…