L’humanité

“No animal has been as defamed as the human being.” In short, this is the thesis that Dutch writer Arnon Grunberg developed in his 2001 essay De Mensheid Zij Geprezen
(Praise Humanity).

Picking up Grunberg’s thesis, Josse De Pauw takes the stand and makes himself the defense lawyer for this so very maligned human: in collaboration with pianist Kris Defoort whose score, performed by Christian Mendoza, accompany him from beginning to end, he imagines a great speech for the defense during which he summons artists and thinkers – from Stanley Kubrick to Balzac, including Bertolt Brecht and Francis Bacon among others – all accused of always having underlined the worst excesses of humanity. He is aided in his mission of rehabilitation by the American soprano Claron McFadden.

Josse De Pauw is once again offering us one of his poetic and musical compositions as only he has the knack. A brilliant and funny mise en abyme in which Arnon Grunberg himself personifies this human, imperfect and alone, who knocks himself out trying to escape his condition.