Jan Fabre gives people fits. The Belgian omni-artist (he writes,
directs, sculpts, and had an exhibition at the Louvre) disconcerts
some, perplexes others, and rarely receives unalloyed praise. Even when
people like his work, they sound uneasy.
Many critics have groped around this feeling of distressed
admiration, my favorite case being a 1986 review in the New York
Times suggesting that Fabre might be a new Pina Bausch, Laurie
Anderson, Peter Brook, and Robert Wilson—but also that the
show in question was “numbing, often punishing” and that “half of
Wednesday’s audience had walked out.”
Fabre, who will bring his Orgy of Tolerance to On the Boards
this weekend, paints self-portraits with his own blood and covered the
Belgian royal palace’s ceiling with carapaces from 1.4 million
scarab beetles. (The photos look lush and scary, like some
glittering green, alien mold had colonized the 19th century.) Reviews
of Orgy of Tolerance in self-described “family newspapers,” like
the London Evening Standard, demur that they cannot
describe the action because it “pushes at what used to be called
decency.” Because this is not a family newspaper: sodomy with a rifle
barrel, sex with furniture, women birthing consumer products, a
shopping-cart ballet, more sex.
“I wanted to criticize the prevailing obscenity and cynicism of today’s society,” Fabre wrote me in an e-mail from Antwerp. “There
were two things that stroke me [sic—I think].” The
first stroke: that everything must be tolerated, to the point where
everything is permitted. Fabre wrote of his dismay that Europeans are
expected to negotiate and dine politely with members of the far right
who “undermine all the values that we cherish.” (The same argument, of
course, can be extended to a related debate—whether the EU should
include conservative Muslims.)
The second stroke: that sex has become a commodity. “All these
commercials that promote telephone-sex lines—I tried it out
and it is completely fake. They make money while the client
is waiting on the phone and the only thing you really can hear is a
recording. The shocking thing is that real and sincere sexuality is, in
this way, reduced to capitalist merchandising.” Fabre sounds
surprisingly conservative: Tolerance is oppressive and sex is not for
selling. (Since when?)
Rarely seen in the U.S., Fabre’s company Troubleyn will perform in
Seattle and Montreal before returning to Europe. Lord knows what
Orgy of Tolerance will actually be like—it’s received
savage reviews in England—but the greatest threat to a
performance is the ease with which it can be forgotten. Whatever this
acclaimed/reviled Belgian brings to Seattle, people will probably argue
about it for years.
In lighter Belgians, cirque-theater company Les Argonautes descends
on the Seattle Rep as part of the Giant Magnet festival, including
adult evening shows. (For those of you who prefer juggling to sodomy.)
