World Without Us

Belgian theatre group Ontroerend Goed are usually a vital wellspring of interesting theatre, but every company has a dud once in a while. The last in a trilogy, which began with a history of the earth, this looks at the future and attempts to answer a question: what would happen if humans suddenly disappeared? It follows the proposition through time, looking at the smallest and the largest details, tracing the final vestiges of humankind’s impact on the Earth.

But it’s a question that others have answered, and better. This long, drawn out answer—pseudo-poetry trying to pass as something profound—takes over an hour of repetitive, monotonous, numbing monologuing to say pretty much the same thing: nature doesn’t care.

Performer Valentijn Dhaenens, dressed all in black, wears a faint smug smile as he creeps slowly around the stage talking about, among other things, a rat having a cardiac arrest. It has the phoney solemnity of someone reading a poem at a funeral.

Fine, there are some interesting thoughts and observations. Time capsules buried beneath the Earth which last a while until the water gets in, animals mutated from nuclear waste. But the point is heavily laboured. There’s no let up from the tedium, apart from the last 10 minutes, which show, with barely legible projections, the contents of the Voyager probe sent into space in 1977.

A tall, black monolith occupies the middle of the stage, never addressed, and lit with varying degrees of gloom. It looks interesting. It has tiny little steps at the top. It’s something to stare at while Dhaenens intones on and on. The rest? Well, it makes you wish you actually had disappeared.