THEATRE AND EXPANDING HORIZONS HOUTMAN: How do you feel about your productions abroad? PERCEVAL: There is a huge difference between directing plays in Flanders and in Germany. For instance the German theatre is organised on the basis of the repertory system, which implies that they stage a different play every day. As a result a big city theatre is able to program every evening different plays on three or four different locations. But in Flanders we have the 'en-suite'-system in which every play is staged uninterruptedly forty or even more times. As such the German system has a big advantage in that it gives actors the opportunity to play almost every day the most diverse plays directed in the most varying ways. This is the reason why these actors have an astounding métier, dramaturgical insight, consciousness of space… The craftsmanship of a German actor is frankly impressive. On top he isn't averse to the big stage. I feel often jealous when I compare the Germans who're comfortable with playing for audiences as big as 1200 people with the Flemish actors who get cold feet about playing in a big theatre like the Bourla. The other side of the picture being that you're often confronted with uninspired acting in Germany, which is perfectly understandable as the actors get blunt by the pressure of work. Moreover these actors work for big theatre companies who have a workforce of over three hundred or even five hundred employees. A lot of these theatre companies accommodate not only a theatre group, but also an opera and ballet group. HOUTMAN: Is this German way of working not curtailing the creativity? PERCEVAL: Indeed, these companies have to plan a lot well in advance to get everything more or less organised. As a result directors are often obliged to outline half a year in advance their scenery, costumes and direction and everything else that comes with the realisation of their project. Of course this makes it impossible to embark on a creative adventure during the rehearsals. As such it isn't surprising that Germans come to scout for Flemish directors and pay a lot of respect and admiration for Flemish directors' adventurism. Indeed, our German neighbours would only be too happy to import this Flemish adventurism. Because no matter how you look at it, without Flanders' sense of directing, a project such as Schlachten wouldn't have been possible in Germany. Furthermore the German theatrical school system is completely different from the Flemish one: German actors are educated as performers and not as artists with their own attitude and view about what they're telling about each other, about theatre, about society and about life… In Germany the criteria for becoming a good actor are defined completely different than in Flanders: a German actor is very much trained on his perseverance, but is never asked to explain 'why he wants to convey this or another story to his fellow human beings'. My 'love-strategy', if I may describe my way of directing in this way, is unknown to German actors. The German way of acting often interferes with personal acting and for me it is very challenging to react against the former. Moreover a theatrical production such as L King of Pain shows that Dutch-spoken and German theatre can lovely intertwine with each other!
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