Miet Warlop believes that objects also deserve due respect, and although man rules all, he can easily goes a mucker unless he is humble to his environment. However, Miet Warlop’s is not only interested in the relationship between man and thing, but she is fascinated by what the animated inanimates do when they find themselves in the same room.

Springville’s figures are grotesque – half thing, half human – characters. Springville is a small commune, with a stylized house in the centre and a rather rough human figure dressed in a suit, which is showing all the possible symptoms of the urban disease called over-civilization. He first frays with a long snoozed figure resembling a vacuum cleaner – which in the meantime seems to be a shoe-box, too – which literally pokes its nose into everything. And the man punishes: he barbarously saws off half of the household monster’s snooze, but the machine takes revenge, and after furiously fumigating, there is a huge explosion.

Yes, it feels as though some things are under one’s feet, as if they kept following and watching us. Or the thing is that we do not appreciate if someone is genuinely interested in us. The man’s ordeals continue after winning some cheap victory over the little vacuum cleaner monster. The switchboard posting on the side of the house comes unstuck with a sudden explosion, and starts agonizing which is incredibly heartrending. We feel a pity beyond measure for it. The little vacuum monster sniffles miserably over its dead, powerless body. The switchboard out of gear is an immensely absurd, though original symbol of loneliness and mistreatment.

The touching moment of mourning is broken by the paddling of a white-spreaded round table, with black stockings on its long legs. The little vacuum cleaner monster thrilled by its charm shows a different side of its “personality”, and unexpectedly turns into a sideboard, placing the properties of an elegant supper onto the table-lady’s back. The table skillfully balances with the abundance of porcelain and temptingly offers its goods to the audience. However, its attempts remain ineffective, so it holds out its long gloved hands and lies down lifelessly. So much like those gloomy, pretty, and precious single ladies who never get married, and after some time they give up.

Again, there is not too much time left to be sorry for the poor table-lady, as all of a sudden a two-storey, extremely energetic figure starts running around roistering in the room. It is a typical contrast of the feminine elegance, a braindead calamity who flunks into the middle of the place because it is so short of mind that it is absolutely incapable of living. It only creates fright around itself, no wonder the creatures still functioning draw apart from it. The most plausible explanation in this thing’s respect is that society is unable to manage the problem of hugeness, or in a wider sense, the ones different from the ordinary.

The high and mighty is still not touched by the sight of devastation surrounding him. His cold eyes survey the place and being convinced that he is totally safe and well, he bangs the door as he leaves. At this moment the house shows him that he is not the master anymore. The roles change, and the house throws out the man together with its trash. Nonetheless, the man is so stubborn that he still fails to be humble. At this point a huge plastic bag puffs up around the house as the symbol of an enormous catastrophe. When it is filled in with air it rattles the house up and down, suffocating everybody and everything around, and then it starts depleting. The total breakdown is inevitable: the house flooring the man suddenly shatters.

All in all, Springville is full of symbols, full of ideas which have just been started, and full of proffered possibilities to reason about. Springville is The Hundred Acre Wood, or – if you like – the squaring the circle. It is tragic and bizarre, sad and fatal, at the same time erotic, lyrical, but most importantly extremely humorous and entertaining. It is a unique form of theatre, Miet Warlop’s own theatrical language and fascinating world of fantasy.

Adél Hercsel
Young Europe Editorial Office

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