Everyman
Three indeterminate figures, ‘the one’, ‘the other’ and ‘one more’, live together at an indeterminate place. Every day brings the same sequence of habits and everything is played out under the all-seeing eye of ‘The Heap’, a pile of stones under which their ‘forefathergrandmothercreatures’ are buried and where the three characters daily fulfil their ‘stone task’. All they possess is ‘The Trickle’, which provides them with water every day. Still, it’s not really a possession, since The Trickle belongs to them all, to ‘everyman’. But then The Trickle abruptly ceases; there’s no water any longer and they are all thirsty. So when one of the characters suddenly finds a well, who owns it? At a stroke the floodgates open: anyone wanting to drink from the well has to provide something in exchange.
Scripts by this multiple-award-winning Flemish author are always rich, existential, symbolic and fairly abstract. The script is richly imaginative.From the report by the jury of the 2024 Kaas & Kappes Prize.
In ‘Everyman’ Freek Mariën presents a world in which private property is non-existent, even as an idea. The result is an imaginative and playful piece of work that raises questions about ownership, greed and charity. ‘Everyman’ is a modern parable, placing existential questions in a delightfully peculiar universe full of wordplay and humour.
Director and playwright Freek Mariën has understood perfectly what it is that makes the difference between entertaining and outstanding youth theatre. ★★★★Het Nieuwsblad
