Two older men dash into the final straight. Before they kick the bucket they want to experience paradise on earth just one more time. This paradise is supposed to have something to do with ‘love’. Unfortunately, these two incorrectly assume that paradise lies in their genital service area. Their most impressive qualities are their names: ‘Gito Spaiano’ and ‘Morris Wine’. They were conceived by the American film director John Cassavetes in 1987, a year and a half before his early death, and shaped into quivering ghostlike figures by Jan Lauwers in the Akademietheater in Vienna. Tired but happy, you have to admit that this was a good thing. The two leading parts in 'Begin the Beguine', as the play is called, were farewell gifts to Cassavetes’ friends and favourite actors, Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara. And in this play you can for one last time delight in a number of classic Cassavetes ingredients familiar from such dazzling films as Opening Night, Husbands (also with Gazzara and Falk!) and A Woman Under the Influence. Jazz with plenty of words The characters are constantly fired up. The things they have to say roll out of their mouths in uninterrupted sequences of sound. The only imaginable equivalent for Cassavetes’ characters are jazz instruments. The era for that sort of articulation was the hard-bop period, from the mid-fifties onward. You have to imagine this verbal music combined with the performance styles of modal jazz (Miles Davis and his successors). And it would do no harm to know that Begin the Beguine is the title of a Cole Porter composition. The two heroes are like saxophones. Gito (Falk Rockstroh) would be the melancholy, whining alto sax. This man watches over the depression caused by aging as if it were a priceless treasure. His opposite neighbour, Morris (Oliver Stokowski) provides the tenor sax voice. He sparkles with the spirit of enterprise like a stalwart enthusiast. The two of them are staying in ‘a flat at the end of a coastal road’. So as not to be constantly at odds with each other about the essence of love, they order in prostitutes from an escort agency. And since they are probably improvising in their discussions of love, while not understanding the slightest thing about it, they are the silliest philosophers since Vladimir and Estragon. Above all, they confuse the ease of a credit card with a free ticket to happiness. Even without Needcompany, Lauwers retains some of the essential characteristics of his work. His stage work is most sharply focused on the centre of the action, while on the fringes he willingly shows the machinery behind the art of illusion. Inge Van Bruystegem and Sung-Im Her take up a variety of parts as prostitutes: one big and blond, the other charmingly Asiatic. These ladies prepare for their numbers at make-up tables. The fact that they appear completely naked on several occasions may rub some stubborn adherents to political correctness up the wrong way. But Lauwers (directing & lighting) also shows that there is a place in hell for everyone, except for those who feel shame. The notion of ecstasy haunts the two men’s minds. They translate ‘love’ into terms of availability. Their female partners have to feign affection for them. Man wants to be deceived by his equals. The way these two present a caricature of dignity, with and without underpants, shows great acting ability. Somewhere in the midst of all this the play ends. Hell has neither beginning nor end. A well-deserved applause for all involved.