The performance group Showcase Beat Le Mot stayed unrenowned, non-conformist and ambiguous for 25 years.  Attending their performances often holds surprises and leaves more question marks than confirmation of the knowledge of the day. Being the ghost drivers of theater history they are their trademark serenity and world-facing composure is key to their work. Showcase Beat Le Mot is a traveling stage whose direction remains enigmatic.

Question: How did you actually come up with the idea of staging Dangerous Liaisons Dangereuses?
Showcase: Someone said to us: Hey, there's an epistolary novel from the time before radio and television, without internet and short messages.
Mot: We remembered the movies and Quartett, the play by Heiner Müller.
Le: First we thought, oh wow, erotic literature. - What is more interesting about the book, however, is the seduction, manipulation, women's rights as an issue, dependence on the nobility and clergy. At that time, the male first-born inherited everything and his relatives were dependent on him.
Beat: Then we realized that we already before often produced performances about revolutions: Failed revolutions, the Great Leap Forward in China, the  Paris Commune…
Schowcase: The novel is set on the eve of the French Revolution. The nobility is only concerned with itself, with power games, seduction and cake fights. We imagined how the clerks and the less aristocratic are no longer interested in this decadence and are already working on the guillotine in the back room.
Mot: 1790 also saw the start of industrialization, with the factories. One consequence of this was the rise of the bourgeoisie, the end of arranged marriages of convenience and the beginning of romantic love marriages.
Le: Though men were still sitting on all the money, and the idea of love proved to be particularly advantageous for men.  They drew strength from the relationship, while women were reduced to care work.
Question: In art, there is often an attitude of taking one's own work or oneself overly seriously. To the point of exaggeration, pretentiousness and sanctity. It seems to be different with you.
Showcase: In the working processes of Showcase Beat Le Mot things often happen simultaneously and many actions and narratives are equally important. This is sometimes seen as arrogance or being out of touch with the world, but it is the exact opposite. With what we call elegant carelessness, Showcase Beat Le Mot aim at nothing less than to change the world view, to say goodbye to the alleged lack of alternatives. To open up resonance chambers, trigger vibrations and leave all doors open for draughts until Black Metal becomes Colored Crispy Noise. Showcase Beat Le Mot follow the crackles.
Question: You are talking about musicality?
Beat: Exactly. Like the gradual search for tones and melodies. Sometimes we hit the wrong key, which then sounds like a question to which we sometimes receive the correct answers from society with a bit of delay.

«The forest is so much more than just trees.» Four questions to Showcase Beat Le Mot
Gisela Feuz,  in "Der Bund" September, 5th 2019

GF: You invite the audience to "walden". Does that mean you play theater in the forest?
SCBLM: No. In our work, we look for ways to create an atmosphere and an awareness for the audience so that they find a different approach to our performance. First we go into the forest, then we perform in the Vidmarhallen. With the forest visit we want to sensitize, to open the pores. We are refering to the Japanese Shinrin Yoku, or forest bathing. We allow the audience to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of the forest and let the forest itself speak through its smells, sounds and the light at blue hour. Drama would only get in the way. The forest stands alone and means nothing. We hope that this attunement will also take the burden of meaning away from our art and that people will be worried all the time asking themselves what message we convey. Our art should foremost simply take place.
GF: 1.5 hour walk in the woods, followed by a two-hour performance in the Vidmarhallen. It's going to be a long evening of theater.
SCBLM: Yes, but the project is very atmospheric. The audience can move freely, switch between 10 self-sufficient performances in the room itself or simply go outside. In the 10 living installations, the forest phenomenon is illuminated and explored from different perspectives. The room itself thus becomes a forest through which you can stroll. "Walden" offers a wide-ranging experiential space into which you can immerse yourself, but from which you can always emerge again.
GF: The title inevitably brings to mind "Walden" from 1854, the book by Henry David Thoreau in which the American describes his temporary life as a dropout. Did it serve as inspiration for your performance?
SCBLM: We are not really referring to the novel. It seems a bit know-it-all at times and today we know that Thoreau stylized his experience a lot. This "back to nature" also has something reactionary about it. With our performance, we don't want to claim that everything is better in nature, we want to explore new ways of creating in our art and involve the audience in the process. We want to leave the traditional theater space, away from the proscenium stage.
GF: Why is the forest "in" right now?
SCBLM: On the one hand, it is present in the media due to the current climate debate. On the other hand, awareness of the healing effects of forests has reached Europe. Forest bathing has been proven to be good for your health. It lowers blood pressure and activates the immune system, to name just two things. The forest also serves as a projection surface for an urban population that transfigures nature. For us as theater makers, the forest is also exciting as a political and historical space. Witches were assigned to the forest and Italian brigands acted partisan-like out of it. So the forest is so much more than just trees.