The forgotten son of the city of Ghent: playwright and mystical symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck. I am fascinated by this brilliant Belgian writer. I recently attended a theater performance about him, led by the highly skilled Swedish director Thom Luz. The production featured Luz’s interpretation of the ambiguous cosmos of Maeterlinck. Maeterlinck is hardly talked about in Ghent, so I expected to be sitting alone in the theater. Surprisingly, the hall was full! After that show was organized a walking tour to important locations of Maeterlinck in Ghent. We were guided along this magical journey through Maeterlick’s life by the charming fairy Marleen. The participants of this tour all looked like characters from the Breigel paintings. Throughout our journey, the dog and cat circled around us. It made me think: the characters in books live much longer than the authors themselves. Maurice Maeterlinck smiled mysteriously at us, from his paper portrait in the hand of our guide. 

'Theatre could serve to reassure the overly confused of this world - and to confuse the overly reassured of this world.'