“Isn’t it rather soothing?” a woman tries to persuade her husband after they saw 15419ft in Zandvliet. The gentleman doesn’t seem immediately convinced, and his wife’s words clearly fail to change his mind. That’s a shame for him, because 15419ft is perhaps one of the most dreamlike and poetic performances that Summer of Antwerp 2019 has to offer. A performance that makes you look further than you thought possible, with your gaze fixed on the horizon. During the evening performance we attended, there was also a wonderful supporting role for a flock of geese flying in a V-formation. When the two actresses mimicked maritime communications with horns and whistles, the birds were so startled that they suddenly veered off their original flight path in an arc, before beautifully resuming their route in line with their initial course. It drew laughter from the stands. You see, that’s one of those magical moments that immediately demonstrates the added value of this production – and, by extension, of open-air theatre.
Now then, the question arises as to whether 15419ft is open-air theatre. Strictly speaking, it is a musical theatre production. Yet it is striking that the press release we received refers more to an installation. The point is that 15419ft possesses the characteristics of both, and that makes it all the more fascinating. Incidentally, it is not a pure musical theatre performance; it includes text that is more reminiscent of a literary evening. The sort of evening where, as a journalist who has worn glasses since Year 4, you feel drawn in by the charm of a line such as ‘I come from the land of the short-sighted and crown myself king.’
The clever way 15419ft is that it knows how intrigue based on very ordinary and small actions. The tolling of a bell, a 4.7-kilometre rope being quietly wound onto a large reel, whilst time slowly slips by like the foam on the Scheldt-Rhine Canal to our left after a Dutch boat has passed. Foam that on our mouths ends up too much to pure longing to take in more of those sweet words and phrases to can take. Insights, too, that are given time to quietly seep in and take hold: ‘If no one were looking at it, the world wouldn’t exist there,’ we hear as we stare at the horizon, nodding in agreement as we write down this sentence, whilst to our left and right the combination of nature and industry—that contrast— the scent of trees, tall grass, and sand that, after two days of intense rain following a heatwave, fills the air with oxygen, whilst on the other side diesel-powered boats sail past and the petrochemical industry is perceptible not only through a flame but also in its pungent odour.
The tuba and trumpet produce a sound. A long one, reminiscent of the sound of boats. Until tuba player Berlinde Deman leaves us with her wind instrument, thereby adding auditory depth to the sensory experience. Gradually, as the text suggests, we seem to dissolve more and more into the gust of wind or the mirage as we read various signs with text at different distances from us: ‘The vista. The promising nothing.’, ‘The vista. A much-conquered something.’, ‘The vista. But it promised nothing.’ and ‘A fresh poem. And it praised something.’ we read. To the sound of cymbals and horn, soprano Els Mondelaers communicates with her colleague, who is driving towards us from afar on a small cart, making horn sounds that once again refer to those of boats and, as mentioned, startle a flock of geese, whilst we imagine, along with the text, what it would be like to fly along with those geese or sail away on a boat. Longing, anticipating, delving deeper, gazing into the distance… and the resonant distance we gaze upon with her, we greedily take in like a child who, after a hot summer’s day, is served a soft drink with a straw – a full glass that is drained in one long sip until the very last drop has vanished into our mouths.
