It is difficult for a fan of Ontoerend Goed to try and compare their output this year with their previous work, and that is mainly because they have little in common. Beyond the company name being applied and being funded by the same people, XXXO, like All That Is Wrong, is a show produced and devised by a new generation of Belgian thespians who have worked with the company before and are now returning at the helm. It is a shame, therefore, that XXXO is almost blindingly annoying as a piece of theatre.
Although one appreciates the investment in the subject of crying made by the two girls featured, it is a subject that does not translate equally well to an audience member. Clips of tear-jerker movies and performances of bits of script lack the spirit of parody to make them funny, or the context from whence they came to bring out any emotion in the audience other than apathy and confusion. The strange series of experiments carried out on stage to display the ways one can be initiated into and explore crying became increasingly perplexing throughout the show, as we were left wondering why it was that two girls were reducing themselves to tears in front of us. Was it a commentary on the emotional tug of theatre, but stripped of its theatricality to just leave the bare emotional husk? If so it failed completely as, without empathy for the people on stage or engagement with the project, we are not likely to cry ourselves.
The two girls gave mixed performances, sometimes getting so overwhelmed by emotion it was genuinely quite moving, whilst at others it was merely difficult to tell lines, or characters, apart. In one particular scene it was challenging to recognise the boundaries between the script and the girls (whether the girls were interjecting, or if those interjections were spoken by someone else and were supposed to be some sort of verbatim set of interruptions.) The final message offered by the show about what makes us cry seems less insightful and more a shoe-horned moral at an unnecessary point.
Whilst these actresses may produce more interesting or powerful work in the future, that time has yet to come. Although praise must be given for allowing them to have carte blanche with a production like this and bring it to Edinburgh, the show lacks the punch to mean we thank the people behind such a decision.
