Ontroerend Goed completely upends the usual theatrical dynamics by making the audience active participants in creating the show. Or, rather, an active participant—because, in the ultimate example of the company throwing all conventions out of the window, the shows both feature an audience of precisely one person.
"I don't like interactive theatre necessarily, one that feels like a workshop," says Devriendt. "The visitor should never be responsible for the artistic content, but I want you to keep living while we're doing the show. A one-on-one show is something joyful, communal, different."
In A Game of You, the audience member progresses through a series of small rooms containing large mirrors, having a series of strange and at times awkward encounters in which they're asked about their life, and then challenged to do the same thing to the subsequent visitor. A test of people's reactions to unfamiliar situations and lines of enquiry, it's also an unsettling lesson in how you appear to other people that seeks to provide audience members with a new sort of self-knowledge.
"I think it's an invitation to introspection: to question the way you look at the world and the way the world looks at you," says Devriendt. "It's about how different versions of the self are existing in this world."
