An apartment at the end of a street by the sea. With a seaview, despite the covered windows. They have just settled in, possibly forever, or just for the weekend: Gito Spaiano and Morris Wine.

The first is a "man of the world". The second is named after "wine", not "whine", as he is "always searching for the rainbow". With their last breath of life, both men are stuck in some way or another. Stuck in their friendship as well as in life. They want to enjoy themselves to the fullest for the final cut. As such, they order women - prostitutes, showgirls - in the dim light of their bedroom. They wait and philosophise. Gito wants sex, Morris pines for emotion and elusive love. However: "If the dark is nothing but the absence of light, love is at least a crack of the door."

The legendary filmmaker John Cassavetes wrote Begin the Beguine, which is a bleak and glimmering allegory named after the Cole Porter-evergreen about love and death, Eros and Thanatos, for Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara just before he died. The project never got further than the preparatory stage. Jan Lauwers premieres the play more than 25 years after it was conceived.