Just as the universe out there, the theatrical universe of Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe keeps expanding. Ever bigger, ever more intimate. His stagings are known for being extravagant and ambitious, with unusual casts and impressive designs. Yet as a singer, performer and theatre director, his work touches upon the transcendent as much as the trivial or the vulnerable. The stage, for Meirhaeghe, is a privileged place for questions about the origin of being and time, for the sacral and the ritualistic, as long as there is conviviality and fun, and a game of charades
and the human urge to mess it all up.
If these characterisations don’t paint a crystal-clear picture of his style, that’s because Meirhaeghe moves like mercury. Wary of creating his own straitjacket, with every work he attempts to reinvent himself. After graduating from theatre school, he scored an instant hit with A Revue (2020), a retro-futuristic queer cabaret, wildly mashing up pieces of classic opera. In 2022, he continued his exploration of the classical canon but set in an entirely different tonality: with Madrigals, a ritualistic theatrical experience or ‘uninhibited orgy’, he mashed Monteverdi’s breathtaking 17th century choral songs with the experimental pop of avant-garde artist Doon Kanda, performed by a cast of eight fully naked performers – a surprising mix of contemporary dancers, classical opera singers and otherwise trained artists. In the meantime, he released the album Spectacles (2021), blending jazz, gospel and opera in yearning love songs. Gifted with a notoriously high-pitched countertenor voice, he continues his musical endeavours to this day, whether in his own projects or in collaboration with others.
Currently, as artistic co-director of the city theatre of Antwerp, Toneelhuis, Meirhaeghe regularly produces exten-sive music theatre works, most recently Ode to a Love Lost (2023) and Shelly Shonk Fiffit (2024), combining music, performance art, choreography and innovative scenography. But where the former is a somewhat austere work, an autobiographical story about unrequited love, the latter explores the collapse of time and space when we zone out from Earth into the boundlessness of the cosmos. Recently, the international scene started fancying this refreshing approach. The iconic Volksbühne in Berlin invited the Flemish native for a guest production, culminating in the enigmatic performance Death Drive (2023). All this, one should add, before turning thirty years old.
Extra Extra was curious to parse the fascinating world of this self-described parvenu from a little Belgian town. During our conversation, his face appeared to be crowned by scale models of planets hanging from the ceiling of his Antwerp apartment. A suitable setting for an artist continuously showing a predilection for the cosmos.
Courtesy of Fred Debrock
Persis Bekkering: In your latest work Shelly Shonk Fiffit, a colossal telescope (modelled on the James Webb Space Telescope) is suspended above the scene. The performance takes a zoomed-out perspective, as if we are looking through the lens into outer space, or maybe space is looking at us. We seem to have been thrown out of linear time; prehistory and future flawlessly merge. Why are you fascinated by the cosmos?
Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe: Shelly Shonk Fiffit originated from the idea that, despite scientific curiosity and progress, as humans we are ultimately ignorant about the universe. In all my artistic work I like to confront the spectator with a different world, something mysterious that evokes questions. Not only in SSF but in other performances too I veer towards enigmatic language or symbols. It’s an invitation to create your own stories or theories about it – whatever you come up with doesn’t matter.
Persis: Are these enigmas compre-hensible to yourself, or are you, as the creator of those works, in the same clueless position as the spectator?
Benjamin: Often, I don’t fully understand them myself. My work is not a rebus. While I may feel more connected to certain scenes, knowing their origins and direction, I’m usually as puzzled as the audience, and that’s intentional. Every performance begins with a question. Many directors know the answers from the start, but in my work, the performers, crew and I collectively seek an answer, even though we know it’s impossible to find. If you already know the answers, why not write an essay instead? To me, performance is not about presenting answers. We always reach a point where we leave things as they are or leave them up to the performers, but ultimately it’s up to the audience. I know the sources of the material, but I don’t know their true meaning.
Persis: Making performance, then, is a process of tentative exploring.
Benjamin: Yes, that’s correct. There’s no grand scheme, just a small plan or idea that we start with. From there, things can get chaotic, and sometimes, inevitably, all hell breaks loose.
Persis: In SSF this notion seems most explicitly thematised. As humans towards the cosmos, we only have questions and theories. There is no certainty.
Benjamin: Exactly, this lack of understanding is dramaturgically translated into a dreamy, associative work. Unfortunately, this approach sometimes left the audience, particularly here in Antwerp, confused. That was challenging for me. In hindsight, I realise how personal this topic is for me. This show is about the desire to be understood. It’s about performers wanting to be understood and about me wanting to be understood by the performers.
Persis: Why was it so challenging to get a grip on this piece? How do you want the audience to watch this work? Should we let go of pregiven notions, of our habitual ways of seeing?
Benjamin: I want to surprise the spectators and bring them into a state of togetherness – that’s the foundation. But to really answer your question, yes, I want the audience to let go of their knowledge and interpretative frameworks. I recently read a Flemish survey where participants mostly said art is about beauty and virtuosity.
I’m very interested in the virtuosity of singers and the perfection of music and images. Beauty is the curse I live with. Yet, I also try to ask questions and push both myself and the audience in certain directions.
In my last two shows – SSF and Ode to a Love Lost – I’ve pushed us into a fyke, into the confines of thought. The difficulty with this quest is that while I strive to make us let go of everything we know, it is through that very striving that we are pushed back into ourselves. Paradoxically, my work demands more brainpower instead of less. It is criticised as being cerebral, hermetic and not emotional. It’s not a relaxing massage but a difficult sudoku. And personally, I hate difficult sudokus. I don’t want a grid for people to recognise things or solve problems; I want a blank page. That is my current conundrum.
…I’m trying to make something beautiful with frayed edges, beauty with a sort of emerging, mouldy panic…
Persis: ‘Beauty is my curse,’ you say. What does that mean?
Benjamin: Working in an industry that values beauty above all else can feel like a double-edged sword. There’s an unspoken expectation to conform to beauty standards, whether you’re a performer or a director. This pressure creates a paradox: you can either embrace traditional beauty or reject it completely with raw, harsh aesthetics. I find myself navigating a middle ground, striving to create something that is beautiful yet imperfect – beauty with a sort of emerging mouldy panic.
On a personal level, like many, I wrestle with self-acceptance and how I am perceived. This inner conflict with beauty profoundly influences my work. For instance, my voice is a reflection of this struggle – it’s become huskier over time because I don’t actively train it. Yet, I find this change intriguing and beautiful, with its operatic highs and smoky undertones. This complexity mirrors my approach to art and direction. Just as my voice is a blend of raw and refined, so too are my images and stage directions. They embody a kind of beauty that’s layered and nuanced, much like the texture of smoked salmon.
Persis: What guides you in creating performances? With your ‘politics of not understanding,’ or however one wants to call it; if you foreclose existing, recognisable forms, what are the principles with which you then build?
Benjamin: My creative process is built from the fragments of existing art – shattered pieces of music, opera and text. I’m not interested in simply reinterpreting established repertoire. A crucial element of my work is the cast. I often choose performers who aren’t traditionally trained in the specific discipline I’m exploring. For me, it’s about creating a community where the performers lead the way. I observe them, project my ideas onto them, and they share their stories with me.
This process can lead to clashes. My vision and their interpretations may conflict, and we may struggle to find common ground. It’s a collaborative effort where we approach creating theatre like making music together – focused on rhythm, pulse and vibe rather than traditional dramatic development or clear-cut narratives.
Sometimes, the performers can become my adversaries, particularly when there’s disagreement or a disconnect in our vision. We clash, fail, reconcile and try again. It’s challenging to hear that my work isn’t perceived as emotional or impactful, especially after investing so much effort into creating a shared, emotional experience with the cast.
A Revue, 2020. Courtesy of Fred Debrock
Persis: The approach you describe, of experimenting without knowing exactly what you’re doing, isn’t this the prerogative of being a young artist? Often, when artists advance in their careers, their work becomes more structured, more efficient.
Benjamin: I deeply resonate with what you’re describing, and I’m continually striving to maintain that sense of openness. My early works – like A Revue and Madrigals, and various concerts – were much freer, more joyful and lighter. They were also better received. Now, six years into my career, I find myself facing a kind of stagnation, a creeping seriousness.
I’ve always resisted staying on a single path. I could have easily created more shows similar to A Revue, with cheerful queer themes and Björk-inspired visuals set to classical beats. Many artists feel pressured to repeat their successes, but I take pride in constantly evolving. Even if it means not always achieving the same level of success, I choose to leave behind what I’ve done before and start anew each time. This often confuses both audiences and performers, but it’s crucial for pushing culture forwards.
In today’s landscape, it’s easier to stage another forgotten Flemish writer or a classic book from the attic than to create something entirely new and ambitious. I admire artists who continually reinvent themselves – that spirit of constant innovation is what drives culture forwards. For instance, my work SSF was inspired by Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square (1915), reflecting that commitment to fresh beginnings.
Persis: Hermetic art is often considered elitist. Your background is not elitist at all; you didn’t grow up in proximity to high culture.
Benjamin: Maybe I have become elitist, after all.
Persis: On the contrary, you seem anti-elitist. You sing opera without formal training, you cannot read music, and you freely sample and rehash parts of the operatic or theatrical canon without much reverence.
Benjamin: That’s the paradox I’m grappling with. I bring together performers from diverse backgrounds and training, creating contexts they might not otherwise experience. I make unconventional choices within the existing culture, which often results in people feeling alienated because they can’t quite grasp what I’m doing. This is where I’m seen as elitist.
It sometimes makes me question whether the audience isn’t capable of understanding more than we give them credit for. [Laughs.] When you start doubting people’s intelligence, you inevitably find yourself considered part of the elite. Personally, I don’t consider myself ‘intelligent’ – I don’t read much, I’m not well-versed in opera or philosophy, and that doesn’t concern me much. My strength lies in my intuition about images and atmospheres.
I’m just a small-town kid from Oudenaarde thrust onto a big stage. My early works, like A Revue, were about being an outsider in the opera world. It seems that the outsider isn’t as welcome anymore, which I find intriguing. The challenge for me is finding a way to be both radical and accessible.
Persis: You’ve often described your work as utopian. What exactly does your utopia look like?
Benjamin: I’m still figuring out how to best answer that. The first word that comes to mind is ‘groups.’ Is that utopian?
Persis: You mean something like collectivity, the people on stage figuring it out together?
Benjamin: Everyone pursuing their own path, each in their own way – this coexistence of individual efforts is another form of utopia. Another aspect of this utopia is naivety, which you mentioned as being contrary to elitism.
Persis: Besides a utopian affect, there’s a strong presence of rituals and spiritu-ality in your work. Very strongly in Madrigals, with its collective chants, but also in the prehistoric imagery of SSF.
Benjamin: I’m increasingly recognising this aspect of myself. While I dislike the vague and sentimental spirituality often associated with new-age thinking, there’s a certain allure to it. It’s about embracing ignorance, naivety and mysticism. I find it fascinating when a group of people immerse themselves in a project for weeks, pretending to be aliens or cavemen. Over time, the act becomes genuine, and the fantasy feels real – like debating whether the cave is damp, for instance. To me, that is a form of spirituality.
Theatre can serve as a parallel universe while remaining grounded in reality. It’s both simple and profoundly beautiful. Even though there are cables everywhere and you can see technicians setting up lights, these elements eventually blend into a different reality that exists alongside our own.
Persis: You are consistently trying and expanding the limits of the theatrical space, finding the cosmic dimension and the most trivial, which makes you an extremely ambitious artist. Death Drive, for example, which you recently directed at Volksbühne in Berlin, was an attempt at creating a liminal space, questioning where being comes from. Is theatre the discipline par excellence for parsing the transcendent?
Benjamin: Absolutely. Theatre acts as an echo chamber and a form of time travel. It allows us to journey into the past and explore the afterlife. Its spirituality comes from connecting with figures like Nijinsky, understanding Hildegard von Bingen’s artistic choices, or gaining new insights into the soul of Monteverdi. Theatre is like a relay race through generations, a séance that brings historical and artistic spirits to life.
Persis: Can I ask you, finally, about the topic of sensuality? There’s a beautiful physicality in all your work. And I’m not only talking about Madrigals, where sexuality is perhaps the most overt, with naked performers entangled in each other. What is the importance of sensuality for you?
Benjamin: I direct the images and experiences that I feel are missing in my own life. I create a sense of intimacy that I find challenging to achieve with others. While some might assume that I share the same freedom and joy as my cast during rehearsals, the reality is quite different. At 28, I grapple with this deeply personal issue. It seems that I channel a freedom within myself that struggles to manifest in my own life. For instance, in projects like Madrigals, I ask performers to do things I could never manage myself. I’m continually amazed by how people from diverse backgrounds, who are strangers to each other, come together to rehearse and perform with such vulnerability. This collaborative process embodies my utopian ideal – a vision of connection and freedom that I strive to realise through my work.
…it seems that the audience’s reactions to nudity, sex, and sensuality have shifted over time…
Persis: Do you consider your work transgressive?
Benjamin: I’m not focused on shocking the audience; my aim is to surprise them. For instance, in Madrigals, I find the visual unity created by an entire cast being naked to be beautiful, rather than shocking. However, it seems that the audience’s reactions to nudity, sex and sensuality have shifted over time. While my work is often labelled as transgressive and my performances are accompanied by content warnings, I struggle with this trend.
It’s intriguing to me that people now believe freedom begins with clear boundaries. I believe that theatre and other art forms should remain spaces of absolute freedom. Although what I’m doing isn’t revolutionary, it feels as if we’ve regressed to a more reactionary stance, losing our openness. After my shows, I often hear people say they enjoyed the performance but were taken aback by the nudity. This reaction highlights the shifting norms I’m challenging. Moving forwards, nudity will play an even more prominent role in my work, and in that sense, I see my work as a form of political expression.
Persis: When did you first fall in love with theatre?
Benjamin: My love for art began in Ghent, where I attended the folkloric puppet shows of Pierke Pierlala with my mother once a year. I was captivated by the miniature sets and the painted trompe-l’œil effects. At home, I began imitating these scenes, and that’s where my artistic journey started.
As a child, I pretended to be an artist, carrying around a palette and sporting a fake mustache. Initially, it was the image of being an artist that inspired me, rather than the actual content of the art. At seven years old, I envisioned myself as Salvador Dalí, and I maintained that persona well into my theatre school years. The allure of the artist’s narcissism fascinated me, but I’ve since moved past that phase. My life has become more boring since leaving that persona behind.
Persis: What fascinated you so much about that character of the artist?
Benjamin: He had a unique social standing and cultural capital while being an outcast, though I didn’t fully grasp that at the time. What fascinates me now is how my obsessions from those early years remain with me. Between the ages of six and twelve, I would hang crocheted bedspreads in the garage, creating my own makeshift set designs. Those memories are still vivid for me, and I aim to recapture that same enthusiasm and creative spirit. While I’m currently working with polished, high-profile forms, my heart is still rooted in the rawness and playfulness of those childhood experiences.
Persis: Your work is often described as decadent. You love the grand gesture. Is it there where the decadence originates, in that kid?
Benjamin: What does ‘decadent’ really mean? People often label my work as decadent based on its perceived value. When they see productions like Madrigals or SSF, they initially appreciate the visuals. However, as their interest wanes, they start to question the cost behind it. To me, creating large-scale set designs is something worth defending. The term ‘decadence’ suggests that something is excessively grand to the point of being bad, but I don’t agree. The caves in Madrigals and the choice to include seventeen performers in A Revue are not inherently bad; they are bold and generous gestures.
A Revue. Courtesy of Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe. Photo: Fred Debrock
Persis: Besides bombast, however, there is always something pushing back, exposing a layer of vulnerability. And you also love a stripped-down stage. Ode to a Love Lost was more austere than SSF.
Benjamin: This is extremely important to me. In SSF, it was a real challenge to embrace vulnerability. The telescope, while perfectly crafted and visually stunning, sometimes felt oppressive when suspended above the scene. Its perfection pushed us to seek out imperfections as a counterbalance. That’s why we have a thirty-minute silence instead of just playing Caterina Barbieri’s music and building towards something grand. There’s a part of me that resists allowing that kind of beauty to dominate. While both Caterina’s music and the telescope are excellent and fit together remarkably well, they don’t capture my interest. People might find it odd that I choose to stage unconventional scenes instead of aiming for a flawless production with perfect dance music and a beautiful set. But, honestly, that struggle and divergence from the norm make me happy.
Persis: You mentioned you find yourself in a bit of a rut these days. Will you be able to break out?
Benjamin: When one door closes, another opens, and that’s how it often works for me. I might go through periods of struggle and low energy, but then, unexpectedly, I find myself reemerging with a renewed clarity. I’m fortunate to have that ability. I feel like I’m on the verge of discovering new directions.
I’m working with fantastic teams on several projects: Louise van den Eede is writing a text for my upcoming premiere at Toneelhuis; Jozef Wouters is designing a set for a piece at Schauspielhaus Bochum; and Bart van Merode is preparing a production for Opera Ballet Flanders. Additionally, I’ve just recorded a new album in Iceland with Björk’s former producer, Valgeir Sigurðsson, and Elisabeth Klinck.
I’m also planning a creative retreat with two friends, aiming to work on something together without any technical equipment, producers or agents – just a return to basics, starting from scratch. It feels like I’m moving back to that initial sense of excitement and creativity, similar to the crocheted bedspreads I used to make in the garage. I can sense that something new is on the horizon, and I’m ready to break free.