De Verwondering at The Brussels City Theatre

‘My best work’ is how Hugo Claus described De verwondering, the novel he wrote at the start of his career in 1962. For the stage adaptation of this kaleidoscopic novel, the director Bart Meuleman has imagined something juicy, brutal, ugly, delightful and dark.

The protagonist is the teacher Victor-Denis De Rijckel, who has been leading a dead-end life since his divorce. When he sees a masked woman at the Ball of the White Rabbit in Ostend, his desire is kindled once more. A schoolboy, Albert Verzele, takes him on a tour through Flemish fields to a castle. Not only does the woman he longs for live there, it also seems to be the focal point for the veneration of a certain Crabbe, a fascist leader who disappeared mysteriously during the war. Through his protagonist’s crisis, Hugo Claus guides us through the bleakest pages of the Flemish Movement. ‘It is a cesspool that De Rijckel discovers in that village, but one he ultimately falls into himself’, according to Meuleman. Flanders to the fore. Or not?