Loup y es tu?

Let us ignore the Wolf’s instructions to Little Red Riding Hood by getting straight to the point and, like Grandmother, not dipping into the jam jar with the back of the spoon: it was fear mixed with anger that led me to write this show.
Rest assured: a rational fear and a controlled anger, yet both grabbed me by the throat on June 10th, 2024, to be exact! It was the day after the federal and European elections in Belgium. Like many citizens—I hope—I watched in horror as the far-right parties achieved their results, consequences of a slow normalization of their vile ideas, visible even within certain so-called “traditional” political movements or in the way some media handle information. The appearance of new expressions such as “post-fascist party” or “far right” felt to me like soft-applied vaseline meant to help us swallow, once again, a grenade disguised as a suppository.

Since I cannot look away, since my artistic intention cannot be disconnected from politics and from society, and since only action relieves my sorrow, I began to question my responsibility as an artist in the face of this worldwide trend toward withdrawal and fear.

The words of Marcel Hicter, one of the fathers of the idea of cultural democracy in Belgium after the Second World War, echoed within me with great weight: “Culture as a tool for educating people in democracy.”

Where had I failed the project? My mind turned into a bumper-car arena where events and images crashed into one another: the stories told by my predecessor, founder of the company, who performed puppet shows in bomb shelters during the Second World War; my Palestinian colleague with whom I have worked for six years and who continues, despite everything, to run cultural activities to offer other ways of resisting than violence; my former street shows, sometimes full of provocations against far-right ideas, and, at the end of the road: the plague!

How could I sleep, preserve my mental health without sinking under responsibility or powerlessness, protect my children, and still feel joy? Good heavens, how good it feels to experience joy—but the joy of giving meaning to one’s life is ecstatic...

Thinking back to my studies as a specialised educator, I remembered that it is more effective to let ideas grow in the audience’s mind than to try to force them in with shocking images.
So I needed to write a show with more understanding for those citizens—disenchanted for some, forgotten for others—who choose to vote for candidates offering fiery, dangerous solutions. I had to begin by acknowledging that the urgency in which some people live is fueled by fear, stirred up by the fraudsters of power who promise magical and immediate solutions: remove the designated enemy and tomorrow there will be no more terrorism, no more unemployment, no more budget deficits, no more housing shortages, no more insecurity, no more loss of identity…

Nothing more common for a writer than to shape the villain of the story using the classic criteria of any self-respecting dictator: monstrous enough to inspire no pity, and powerful enough to be blamed for all our misfortunes.

I started to see things clearly: a village, an Orwellian micro-society built on mistrust, fear, social control, surveillance cameras, watchful neighbours who no longer speak to each other, repression, rearmament, walls, and the belief that man is a wolf to man—better to eat than be eaten.
A town ruled by a mayor driven by filmmaker John Carpenter’s quote: “The strongest human emotion is fear. It’s the essence of any good thriller to make you believe in the Big Bad Wolf, even for a moment.”

The idea had sprouted.

To allow it to fully grow—dramaturgically and in the spirit of Les Royales Marionnettes—I had to weave all these threads around a powerful contemporary concern: the risk of losing one’s freedom, and its counterpart: the unfounded fear of a monster stirred up by a self-proclaimed “saviour.”

One particular tale immediately came to mind. A girl no longer able to visit her Grandmother because of a rumour, spread by the newly elected leader, about a Big Bad Wolf*. A curious, intelligent girl who no longer believes in bogeymen. A heroine who holds my hope that we will not drown in unfounded beliefs fed by unverifiable information, controlled by algorithms and “engineers of chaos.”

Amal—meaning “Hope” in Arabic—is my Little Red Riding Hood; she speaks with tenderness and clarity to the people of her village to convince them that they are being deceived.

And there it was… a show in my hands.
A tale full of tenderness and humour for families. A playful wink in which the fear of the bogeyman—usually brandished by adults—is sent right back at them by a child.
A show on the road, a small seed planted to make us laugh at our fears and what they create. I continue to do my part like a gardener. I find sleep again for a while—long, I hope. As long as the days last in which I can go and look at the fruit of the tree I have planted.

*“Big Bad Wolf”: a term chosen not to deny the existence of criminals, though they are far less present in everyday life than “they” try to make us believe, and to remind us that a person who is outside the norm, troubled, or different is not necessarily a monster.

November 4th, 2024,
Didier Balsaux.