Les Enfers secondaires | Les dernières hallucinations de Lucas Cranach l'Ancien

As the emblematic character of Les Enfers secondaires (The secondary underworld), Félicien Rops raises the question of the vampiric relations between a creator and his creations. Going through a period of crisis and refusals, incapable of letting go of his art and sources of inspiration (amongst which eroticism takes centre stage), the painter lets his contradictions and alarm go head to head within him with hopeless lucidity – but never without humour. 

A previous version of this play by Patrick Bonté premièred in November 1987 at the Théâtre du Grand Midi in Brussels (directed by Bernard Damien). 

 

Whimsical recreation of the late Middle Ages, Les dernières hallucinations de Lucas Cranach l’Ancien (The Last Hallucinations of Lucas Cranach the Elder) was written to set off images and movement in a performance halfway between theatre and dance. It can also be read as a piecemeal description of a world of numbness and perversion where characters that are astounded to be alive and breathing move along. 

The first version of this production by the Compagnie Mossoux-Bonté was created in January 1990 at the Theater De Synagoge in Tilburg (The Netherlands) under the title De ultieme gevoelens van Lucas Cranach de Oude.