Texts by Jacques Brel

”There are things you can’t tell one person alone, things you can only tell two thousand persons. Worse still, there are things you can only tell yourself in front of two thousand people, who would seem to prove you right while you share the things with them.“ The quite exceptional, Belgian-born chansonnier Jacques Brel loved the stage. And yet he quit the boards at the height of his career, aged 38. Recalcitrant, single-minded and nonconformist, he was dreading repetition. Predictability was anathema to him. The nomadic artist sought new challenges instead: in the film world, at sea and in the air.

The focus of Werner Düggelin’s show is not so much on the music, but rather dedicated to the texts of Jacques Brel, to memories, thoughts and observations emerging from interviews with the multi-facetted artist. With Brel’s own words Düggelin creates a memory space – and a monologue for the quite exceptional actor André Jung.