Productions.

Mireille & Mathieu are busy bees! The list of productions grew steadily over the years, some celebrating more than 100 performances. Every show is our very own home grown produce.

The show ARM is setting off on a international tour.
We are at present (2009) remoulding SCHAAM for the international festival circuit.
Keep a watchful eye on our agenda!

Watch here the trailers of ARM, SCHAAM and Leg@ron .
And this fragment from ARM as seen on Flemish television.

Below a list of our productions, each single one a little jewel, in reverse chronological order.

ARM – International re-production - 2008

Lost Toys filled with stories.

ARM is visual theatre in which imagination reigns supreme. Mireille & Mathieu are at a flee-market full of discarded and forgotten toys. Focusing on these toys, they set loose their unbridled imagination. At first Mireille & Mathieu only seem to be rummaging through boxes and tables full of parafanalia. But the objects they pick up turn out to be bursting with stories. These stories, sometimes gentle and poetic, but more often cruel and comical, follow each other in quick succession.

Mireille & Mathieu create a theatre fitting all tastes and all ages. By using objects which are familiar to everyone, they gain direct entrance to our emotions.

Production: MIREILLE & MATHIEU
Co-producer: HET HUIS VAN ALIJN, GENT
Creation and acting: Erik Bassier en Kathleen Wijnen
Première in Israel: Intern. Festival of Puppet Theater - Jerusalem - 08/2006
Première in France: Les Tombées de la Nuit - Rennes - 07/2008
Première in Spain: La Merce - Barcelona - 09/2008
Première in Great Brtain: Green Room - Manchester - 10/2008

SCHAAM - 2006/2007 - (SAME - 2006/2007)

You're enjoying life to the full. The next day you realise shamefacedly you're on equal terms with murderers, presidents, rapists, softies and frumps. There are plenty of ways to overcome this shame: Be cynical, turn militant or religious, try denial, escapism, philosophy, drink, go and paint the town red...

Choosing in the shopping mall is a difficult task. So, we decided not to, but throw it all in your lap, in your face, wherever you prefer.

SCHAAM is being remoulded for the international festival circuit.

Acting and creation: Erik Bassier, Esther Maas en Kathleen Wijnen.
Production: Mireille & Mathieu
Première in Belgium: 31/01/2006 for the COMEDY ZONE festival in the Minard theatre in Gent.
BOOOKINGS: see CONTACT

LEG@TRON (of wa?) - 2004

Leg@tron (of wa?) Love! Baby Seals! La Belgique ! Motherhood! Pollution! Singing rabbits! Foreigners! Dishcloths!..
Daily routine for two videogame-babes during their Odyssee through leg@ron ... a visual trip for the whole family.

Acting and creation: Erik Bassier en Esther Maas
Production: Mireille & Mathieu
Co-producer: DE WERF in Bruges
Première in Belgie: 10/09/2004 in the Minard theatre in Gent at 20:00
Première for Holland: 24/10/2004 in the ROTTERDAMSE SCHOUWBURG
Tour: see "performances"

ARM - 2001/2004

Arm Lost Toys filled with stories.

ARM is visual theatre in which imagination reigns supreme. Mireille & Mathieu are at a flee-market full of discarded and forgotten toys. Focusing on these toys, they set loose their unbridled imagination. At first Mireille & Mathieu only seem to be rummaging through boxes and tables full of paraphenalia. But the objects they pick up turn out to be bursting with stories. These stories, sometimes gentle and poetic, but more often cruel and comical, follow each other in quick succession.

Mireille & Mathieu create a visual theatre fitting all tastes and all ages. By using objects which are familiar to everyone they gain direct entrance to our emotions.
ARM turned out to be one of the highlights of the Tweetakt festival in Utrecht bursting as it is with delightful absurdities, original finds and hilarious scenes about love, violence and the typical man-woman relations.

Production: MIREILLE & MATHIEU
Co-producer: HET HUIS VAN ALIJN, GENT
Creation and acting: Erik Bassier and Kathleen Wijnen
Première in Belgium: 15/07/2001 Norbertine Chapel in Gent (Huis Van Alijn)
Première in Holland: 12/06/2002 Tweetakt Festival in Utrecht (Theatre Kikker)
Tour + repeats : see "Performances"

BASILE VLADOVIC (DE BELG) – 2001 / (Basile Vladovic (The Belgian)

The experimental life of Basile Vladovic (Belgian male, hetero) is a grim fight with a reality he doesn't understand, doesn't accept and tries escape from.In vain.The search for the origin of his Slavic name degenerates into a documentary thriller about his loneliness, his social and sexual fears and anxieties. His attempts to lead him towards the selfedge ofhis fantasies, which turns out to be fatal.

Fear of heights can arouse an impulse to jump. In the same way anxiety- a signal against (self)destruction- can bring about destruction.

At theatre Mireille & Mathieu Erik Bassier cheerfully experiments since 1996 with dolls, masks and attributes. In the monologues 'Basile Vladovic' he continues doing this, but more thriftily; blacker, scratching at the filthy trimmings and weaker parts of his character.

Text and acting: Erik Bassier
Direction: Anouk David and Luc Van Autreve
Production: MIREILLE & MATHIEU
Première: 23/11/2001, BIJ DE VIEZE GASTEN in Gent

HOWDOVOODOO - 1998/2000

Homdovoodoo How do voodoo is a medical soap-thriller which descends into the depths of illness and disease, the darkness of (malicious) delight and looses itself in the ecstatic delights of recovery! The most tragic love story since the invention of the medical novel! The breathtakingly beautiful nurse Influenza is in love with Doctor Dose , who – you guessed right – doesn't even notice.

Influenza goes to the furthest extremes to attract the attention of her Doctor even taking refuge to voodoo practices to obtain this end. Her irresponsible behaviour causes one of her patients to die and doctor Dose too must give up all prospects of a happy end.
As a safety precaution the patients are all old dolls and cuddly wild beasts...

Don't expect to be getting any useful information about voodoo, though.. The magical tricks used in this play are a loose collection of European witchcraft, African fetishism and Oriental medicine. They tell us more about ludicrous idea we have here about quack doctors and charlatanism robbing poor credulous people of their earnings. They tell us a lot too about the fact that a doll was created in the image of man. Just try and stick a needle in a doll resembling the person you want to get a grip on....

Co-production MIREILLE & MATHIEU vzw / Theatre FROE FROE / CENTRUM NETWERK AALST
With Financial assistance of the MINISTRY OF THE FLEMISH COMMUNITY.
Direction: Anouk David en Walter Janssens
Acting: Erik Bassier en Kathleen Wijnen
Première: 28/09/1999 in Centrum Netwerk Aalst
Tour + repeats: 2000/2001

DE KEUKENHULP en SPOREN – 1998 / (THE KITCHEN HELP and TRACES)

Two short video films produced for the PROVINCIAAL ARCHEOLOGISCH MUSEUM in ENAME . Assignment of the PROVINCE EAST-FLANDERS.

Production: MIREILLE & MATHIEU vzw

ZIT - 1997 / (SIT)

Zit 'SIT' is the one thing we don't do. But we do a lot of standing, dancing, flying, sleeping, eating, boxing, drumming... Mireille & Mathieu play with dolls in a way you're not meant to at all.

Life after death for old toys. If you do want a story to fit 'SIT', this is the one. Or is it the story of an (ugly) duckling that ran out of its egg before it could even crawl and then kept dawdling about before deciding to become a lovely swan? Or is it a story about hunger, longing, envy and a zest of life? Isn't it? Don't break your heads over it. We don't either...

Creation and acting: Erik Bassier and Kathleen Wijnen
Coaching: Walter Janssens
Production: MIREILLE & MATHIEU vzw, with support of CENTUM NETWERK AALST
Première: 28/06/1997 in MINARDSCHOUWBURG te Gent/ festival 'DE THEATERBOM'
Tour + repeats in Belgie and Holland (1997 - 2000)

MIREILLE & MATHIEU - 1996

Full moon in a Flemish living room! A number of well-worn malicious happen to meet.. Mireille en Mathieu, two innocent tourists on a bicycle tour get entangled in a (nasty) web of emotions and primitive instincts.
The show floats in this unexpected, surprising combination of people, dolls, and all sorts of implements.

Nothing is sure here and don't have the illusion you're living in a safe, well ordered World. ( We want you to be longing for happiness and peace...) The simple plot is regularly enriched (disturbed?) by purely visual actions which tend to create a certain surrealistic charm. No conventional puppet show, so, and imaginative use of the language, eye-winks to some classics of the theatre and film assure its appeal to a wide audience.

Recycled-dolls-show.
Première: BarBaBelge, Gent
Performances in the program OPGEPAST JONGE HONDEN! ( Watch out for Young dogs), Gentse Feesten '96.
Selected for the PUPPETBUSKERSFESTIVAL 1997