REVIEW: Works and Days - A Powerful and Deeply Resonant Work of Art

©️Photo by Kurt Van der Elst

Birth, life, and death converge at the heart of this visually spectacular performance, as theatre collective FC Bergman seeks the truth about our place in the wider world. This wordless piece, Works and Days, blends stunning imagery, movement, and music to explore our connection with the land we inhabit.

Journeying from ancient times to the present, the play cycles through the seasons and human rites of passage. The ingenious set design exposes actors to the elements, evoking pastoral paintings with FC Bergman’s signature humour and pathos.

It’s hard to describe what unfolded on stage. It felt like a living work of art. At first, nothing seemed to happen, yet somehow everything did. The meaning of life? The purpose of work? What time and history have left us? The powerful opening saw the floor itself destroyed - something most audiences have never witnessed. Without uttering a word, the performers captured our full attention. We watched a house being built, only to see it collapse. We witnessed birth and death, ribbons and ruin.

The absurdity reached from chickens to robotic dogs, from dreamlike wooden creatures to mud-soaked rain, from buried pineapples to showers of coloured paper turning into ash. Despite the lack of a linear “story,” the tightly structured chapters revealed a deliberate vision. Every performer’s movement, every stage cue, every technical choice felt deeply considered.

From the agricultural age to the shadow of industrialisation, symbolism unfolded, the elder cast scattering coloured confetti in her youth, now cast only ash in old age, as towering machines spewed smoke and drew the young into an almost hypnotic orbit.

Two on-stage musicians doubled as actors, making the performance’s fluid integration of music and movement possible. From saxophone to organ to voice, the live score drove the rhythm and emotion of the piece, even incorporating variations in microphone use between sections.

Works and Days tells us the meaning of life, or, is there a meaning of life?

★★★★

For more information, please visit: https://www.eif.co.uk/events/works-and-days

Credits

Cast: Stef Aerts, Joé Agemans, Susan De Ceuster, Geert Goossens, Fumiyo Ikeda, Maryam Sserwamukoko, Thomas Verstraeten, Marie Vinck
Directors, Dramaturgs & Set Designers: Stef Aerts, Joé Agemans, Thomas Verstraeten & Marie Vinck (FC Bergman)
Composers / Musicians: Joachim Badenhorst & Sean Carpio
Costume Designer: An d’Huys
Lighting Designers: Stef Aerts, Joé Agemans & Ken Hioco
Co-produced with: Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa; Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg