A Myth by Mees Vervuurt – A Journey Through the Shifting Sands of Sound and Story
A Myth, directed and composed by Mees Vervuurt, is less a performance and more a profound act of unmooring. Staged in a haunting, atmospheric space by Studio Vacuüm, the production immerses its audience in a sensory, mythological world where certainty dissolves, and understanding becomes elusive. The result is a powerful meditation on presence, perception, and our fractured relationship with nature and meaning.
From the moment the show begins, it is clear this is not traditional theatre. The audience is invited — or rather, compelled — to move with the piece, to follow performers and sounds, to change perspectives both literally and metaphorically. Movement becomes part of the narrative. We are not just watchers; we are participants, observers drawn into a sonic and spatial choreography that blurs the lines between performer and audience, art and environment, story and silence.
At the heart of A Myth is the question: what stories do we tell ourselves to understand our world, and what happens when those stories fail us? Vervuurt’s composition is a remarkable balancing act between familiarity and alienation. Echoing arias swell and collapse into sirens and metallic groans. Baroque harmonies are twisted and delayed until they lose their origin, becoming shadows of something once heard. A piano is dragged across the space, its sound reverberating with ritualistic gravity. A trombone wails like a lost creature. Smoke, light, and stroboscopic flashes distort perception further, making the performance feel dreamlike, at times almost apocalyptic.
The performers move with purpose, yet also with searching uncertainty. One figure in particular seems to embody this sense of inquiry — wandering, observing, almost asking on our behalf: Where are we? What is this? Her presence mirrors the audience’s own struggle to grasp meaning, to belong within this disorienting but compelling soundscape.
But perhaps the point is not to understand — at least not in the rational sense. A Myth suggests that the stories and myths we use to make sense of the world may themselves be the barrier to truly experiencing it. Language, it hints, might be both our bridge and our prison. In this performance, sound and space become language, and silence is just as telling. The piece ultimately refuses neat resolution. Instead, it leaves us with open-ended questions, a lingering sense of awe, and perhaps a subtle shift in how we experience presence.
Is A Myth itself a myth? Is it trying to shed the structures of myth or become one anew? These are the provocations that linger long after the sounds have faded. Vervuurt has created not just a performance, but a philosophical encounter — a moving, breathing question mark in the form of music, light, and human curiosity. Migle DUNCIKAITE 25th May 2025
Photo by Tibor Dieters
