War, death, grief and us – Jan Lauwers and the Needcompany tell hard-hitting non-conclusive (hi)stories in "Das Hirschhaus" ("The Deer House") on the Perner Island in Hallein. Death has lots of different lives. It crops up in different shapes. As an execution squad, a bomb or a wolf. Or as a bolt stunner for deer to be easily slaughtered. By chance or as murder. Or even out of love. Sometimes death comes as a fleeting thought on a Sunday morning. Like with Velvet Underground, who sang back in 1966, "Sunday morning and I’m falling / I’ve got a feeling I don’t want to know". Death gives birth to some of the most powerful stories of mankind, Jesus, Kennedy, Lennon – or the stories from the deer house. "Good stories are dark. Full of tragedy. Full of incest and murder", says a voice on the stage. All these stories can be traced back to mythology, where violent death becomes the driving force for the new. Because death is only really exciting and threatening when we are interested in life. A monument to love, built on despair Where death comes to meet us, where we experience the end, when we still have some time to survive – that’s when death gives birth to a form of life revealing despair and hope to us. Death gives birth to sadness, dragging us into unforeseeable worlds of emotion. It makes the one go wild with rage, while another falls silent. But all are linked together by the feeling of loss and uncertainty, but also by the necessity to commemorate the dead to keep them alive. "A funeral is the one social event in every culture where the rituals remain unchanged and respected" says a voice on the stage. Up there on the stage a monument to love is erected. It appears ridiculous, built out of embarrassing despair. What could have ended differently (or better)? Who is going to be the next victim? Memories are evoked, history written. A mother toils to dress up her dead, naked daughter, brought back home to her from the war. An unbearable situation. A procedure that drags on, magnifying the pain that surely must be connected with this act. In such moments, when death is experienced hands-on, in which everyone becomes aware that he too must die some day, the Needcompany creates moments of powerful emotion – in their latest production "das Hirschhaus". Fear and anxiety creep off the stage and the brain sets a mind-blowing memory machine in motion – remembering the dead and all the stories around them. We get a feeling of trepidation, not knowing how things will continue now that someone has gone. "Das Hirschhaus" is the last work in the trilogy "Sad Faces/Happy Faces" by Jan Lauwers and the Needcompany. The other two works are "Isabella’s Room" (2004) and "The Lobster Shop" (2006). "Das Hirschhaus" was written specially for the Salzburg Festival and had its premiere on Monday on Perner Island in Hallein. The Flemish theatre director Lauwers created a brutally touching work, full of deeper meaning and humour, full of melancholy and tragedy and with the comforting, even reconciling certainty that the plot will not just have one single outcome. Instead of some impossible reality, it’s all about moments of deepest emotion. "In such intensive moments as these, when everything around us is changing, time just stands still", says that voice. And while this is being said (and while somebody is being murdered), it actually happens. The focus on dealing with death, the grief, is just the right thing for Lauwers’ well-tried and often-copied theatre language. Lauwers has a sharp instinct for unearthing great tragedies. He also has excellent co-workers to help him monumentally stage them. And he has an ocean of ideas in his head. It is said that grief has no specific form. But it is that one emotion common to all cultures. "That pure, unadulterated feeling that pervades a funeral – the grief – maybe that is the only thing that keeps all cultures from falling to bits. Not happiness", says a voice on the stage. It can mean anger and destruction. But it can also give birth to self-communion and renunciation of the world. Surrealistic rooms for dreams and nightmares In "Das Hirschhaus", Lauwers investigates the distress that can be found in any society just as in any soul. The stage is a surrealistic setting for dance and music, for speaking and moving, for visual arts and the self-perception of the actors, for dreams and nightmares. No claim is ever made to an unambiguous interpretation. There’s no fast food for thought here, but there is great leeway for associations, for own perceptions, out of which deep emotion arises during the performance. But it still remains true that "nobody writes his own history". The starting point for "Das Hirschhaus" stems – as is often the case with Lauwers – from reality. The brother of one of the company’s dancers was shot dead in Kosovo in 2001 while working as a war photographer. The company was informed about this while on tour. Backstage the actors start to reflect on the sadness of death. In the end the company makes its way to the deer house ("Das Hirchhaus"), a family retreat. But this is exactly why it is so fearsome. For every tragedy is about a family. That much for the logical part of the drama – the rest is imagination run wild. It’s a hard and deep subject, but it’s told in a spritely fashion. A big picture is painted, consisting of dialogues, monologues, direct explanations for the audience (some by that fantastic Viviane de Muynck), unobtrusive dancing scenes, and accompanied by pop-songs, in whose simple language deep emotion is expressed. What with this complete plethora of feelings and everything that’s happening on the stage, it is of no importance if you don’t catch the one or other detail. You hardly notice (in comparison to the dress rehearsal) that one of the actresses has had to bow out at short notice. Death is nothing compared with the hard reality of surviving Anneke Bonnema hurt her back a few hours before the premiere was due to begin. The doctors advised her to avoid standing or sitting. So she performed her role – at least the singing and speaking bits - lying on a stretcher at the side of the stage. The fact that she doesn’t leave the stage, even though she is not there, is part of the strict separation of actors and what’s being acted and is used intentionally for its effect. Nobody can just slip into a role. Any illusion of reality being created on the stage is avoided. In spite of all the brutality being dealt with, the stage is no bloody mess. Heart and brain are set on fire. What previously appeared as sinister and full of despair in Lauwers’ early works (such as the "Snake Trilogy" produced ten years ago) and was accompanied by cynical statements on the situation in the world, has now evolved into an almost sentimental, ironic and light-handed game about the impossibility of making any definite statements. The deer can be seen as a symbol for this evolution. There’s nothing sinister about them. Indeed they conjure up associations of grace and elegance, as well as being animals of great mythological potency. "Watch out, the world is not behind you" – this statement taken from Velvet Underground is a recurrent theme of the whole production. But where is reality, what is fiction, in this world? Where does it come into our lives? Does it always only happen from outside? In the face of death the Needcompany makes suggestions, without giving any convincing answers. That’s not possible anyway, as everyone feels there aren’t any. Even the finality of death cannot provide us with any certainty. Death is nothing but the start of a new chapter. Grief gives birth to the next tragedy. Powerful. Sad. Different. New. The hard reality is about surviving. As Velvet Underground puts it: "there’s always someone around you who will call".