Abul... quoi?

On a fast road, in the middle of a park, a stone's throw from some posh clubs, stands a little theatre. Low profile, old style, a bit uncared: Belgian style for coolness.

Invasion! is on as of today, telling the story - better, the stories - of Abulkasem.

Abulkasem is a character in a play, is a terrorist from the Middle East, is a word in youngsters' slang (a noun, a verb or even an adverb), is an illegal immigrant in Sweden.

It is a tale of identity and prejudice. A tale of points of view and of manipulation. And a tale of language and misunderstanding: we have expectations, we make assumptions, we think we get the point but maybe we are not even listening really. Then every person or every word can be Abulkasem, it won't matter.

Hey you, reading this, why do you abulkasem me like that?

Out of mind

You think, you decide, then you take action. Or, at least, that is what we believe.

Scientists have tried telling us a different story, that is that you do not really decide what you do.

Then, tabloids tried to sell us that if you (a woman) take too many decisions for somebody else (your man), thou shalt suffer by means of sex deprivation (nonsense, it was just the usual mysoginist scam).

Station House Opera's play shows, instead, what happens if the decision to act is taken out of your mind.

What does it look like when someone else is spelling out loud the action you are going to perform (make a cup of tea)? What if that person is telling you not just what you are going to do or say but also what you are going to think? It becomes too slow, or too hectic and confused. Surely it becomes surreal (and therefore arrives in Brussels). Can you not like the rules of the game? Of course you can. Just like the lady-in-red-dress in the play: some external voice is telling you to be happy ever after with the blue prince you just found, what if somehow this does not look right? Not a problem: let the voice talk about love and family life but you push the guy into a jute sack bag, tying the knot (literally) around his ankles and disappear from sight.