2023
The Rubble Menu begins with a question:
Is it possible that the end has already happened, and we simply failed to notice?
The performance speculates on future generations and the ways they might seek comfort and meaning amid the chaos of a post-internet world. Globalization and cultural homogenization have transformed reality into a strange non-place, where individuals become increasingly detached from the consequences of their actions.
In The Rubble Menu, attempts at connection are inevitably shaped by the consumerism, narcissism, and violence of late-capitalist society. Traces, remnants, and debris—the “rubble” left behind—are continuously rearranged in an ironic play of meanings. A group of performers inhabits an abyss in which the apocalypse is not a singular event but an endless process of ending. Within this landscape, a decaying car, a tent, and scattered cans are moved from place to place without purpose.
Even acts of violence seem devoid of consequence. The shooting of a character changes nothing; in this space, much like in a video game, nobody truly dies. Spirits inhabiting a non-place – the perpetual present of post-digital existence, cannot be killed.
In one sequence, performers attempt to assert control over nature by vacuuming snow. Later, in a quasi-religious procession, they carry a television onto the stage. The screen displays the very scene unfolding before the audience, pre-recorded earlier and played back with a slight acceleration, creating a temporal loop in which representation overtakes the present moment.
Occupying the space between ruin and possibility, The Rubble Menu explores whether the future remains open to change or whether history has already reached its end and continues only as repetition.
CREDITS
Director: Mateusz Staniak
Choreographer Adam Peterson
Light, costume and set design: Mateusz Staniak & Adam Peterson
Compositon and sound design: George Dhauw
Cast: Roni Yaacobi, Edoardo Silva, Meriç Tuncer, Pieke Maessen, Birgit Boer
Photos: Jésula Toussaint Visser