Bart Meuleman, why did you choose a play by the Dutch duo Kas & de Wolf?
I first saw Kas & de Wolf in 1988, when they were performing a philosophy-based play at the Higher Institute for Philosophy in Leuven. In front of me were two figures, one small and one large, a sort of Mini & Maxi. They turned out to be Kas & de Wolf in a very funny play, full of brilliant ideas, but performed with seeming nonchalance. In the 1990s I saw several of their plays, which were always wry and comical. Not side-splitting, but cynical humour which was the result of the scripts being so well written. They were very musical and everything was extremely well expressed. The subject was often the deplorable state of theatre.
What do you mean by the deplorable state of theatre?
It was perhaps more a theme of then than now: at the time people were reflecting on what theatre wanted to do or achieve, as compared to what it actually was. Kas & de Wolf often made that the subject of their shows. Op is op (On stage is on stage) for example, where Willem – always the good-natured one of the two – appears with the news that Kas doesn’t want to perform. Willem in front of the curtain, Kas behind it and then one-and-a-half hours of negotiating to get him to perform. It was full of caustic, dry humour.
Despite all that humour, Kas & de Wolf only attracted a limited or select audience, didn’t they?
From the time they started out as a duo in 1985, Kas & de Wolf were on the fringes of the theatre spectrum. They were literally outsiders, too, particularly Willem de Wolf, who came from a very ordinary family in a village in Groningen. They fought very hard to carve a niche for themselves, but as a duo they remained on the fringes of the spectrum. Only once did they get a state subsidy which they immediately used to buy the most expensive BMW, a ‘flying machine’ with leather seats and a wooden dashboard which I sat in once. The subsidy committee was furious. That was the last time they received a subsidy. Their attitude to subsidies and commissions is typical of their radicality: they would not be told what they should do by anybody, or what they could or couldn’t do. They went their own sweet way. Their shows were serene and seemingly effortless.
What attracts you to people who won’t be told what to do?
You often come across people in the world with certain ideals who gradually plane down those ideals. They move over and start to collaborate. That is normal, it’s what people do. But it makes me happy to see that there are people who don’t do that, like Kas & de Wolf. Even if I know that it certainly hasn’t been easy for them. And yet they went on doing their own thing until the end. All the time they refused to compromise. In 2004 they stopped working as a duo. Ton Kas went into films and television. When it comes to playing the bastard Amsterdammer, a cad or a son-of-a-bitch, he’s really good. Very dry. Willem has concentrated on writing and has worked for Dood Paard and mugmetdegoudentand, among others. Since 2010 he has been part of the de Koe theatre company here in Antwerp. So they have both ended up in a different place.
What is Desperado about?
About four men who come together at the weekend in a sort of Far West village to practise their shared hobby, which is dressing up as and pretending to be cowboys. They talk to each other in a language riddled with clichés. It’s actually a load of waffle; they never really say anything. The words conceal great loneliness and sadness. Though the men are in a bad way, and in a sense provide mutual support, they can’t refrain from kicking each other occasionally, because then – for a brief moment – they feel just a little bit better. Four men, four idiots. The picture painted of men in Desperado is not a complimentary one. And that’s why it’s so funny. It really makes you laugh, and at the same time it is very sad. The play was written fifteen years ago, but what is in it is still relevant. Chasm humour.
interview by An-Marie Lambrechts
