Every Ending

Four figures fight a power struggle in which sexuality and language are the weapons. Based on Quartett by the author Heiner Müller.

We find ourselves at a zero point. Are we in a bunker after the Third World War, or in a sophisticated salon in the days before the outbreak of a revolution? Consumed by internal intrigues, a power struggle is being fought in which sexuality and language are the weapons. The characters bear names like Valmont, Merteuil, Tourvel, and Cécile. But are they playing a character, or primarily themselves? Who is the victim, who the perpetrator? Their battlefield has a shaky foundation of hollowed-out values. Only the flag of vanity continues to wave at the top of the mast. Yearning for love and unity, they cling against their better judgment to what once was, but will never be again.

Every Ending takes Heiner Müller's text *Quartett* as its starting point. The now-legendary text is an adaptation of Laclos' 18th-century epistolary novel *Les liaison dangereuses*. In the hands of director Wouter Van Looy and the young collective *Les Âmes Perdues*, it becomes an intense music theatre performance in which Valmont and Merteuil, Cécile and Tourvel raise their voices through the music of Roy Orbisson, Messiaen, Poulenc, and Nico.