“With their complementary acting styles, Georgia Scalliet and Frank Vercruyssen stir up this typically Bergmanian maelstrom to ambiguity. As at ease as an impudent young actress as in the role of a ghost from a tormented past, Georgia Scalliet, now a member [sociétaire] of the Comédie-Française, responds fierily to the surly dryness of the Flemish actor, who once again displays his impeccable mastery of carefully polished dialogues. It brings the STAN season full circle – and how!”

“And the theatrical illusion is gripping when, as if by magic, Georgia Scalliet turns into Rackel, the character’s egocentric and pitiful mother, an alcoholic and nymphomaniac actress battered and bruised by life and a shortage of work. Suddenly we find ourselves in another episode, a flashback which the magic of theatre transforms into a vivid and very moving present. Bergman adored actors, and actresses, with whom he had many love affairs. The two actors here are dazzlingly real, while preserving a lightness, a collected ‘coolness’ in their acting which is true to life.”

“But the most impressive of the transitions is when the scene from the past between Vogler and Rakel switches to a scene in the present between Anna (so playing the role of her own mother) and Vogler playing Rakel’s lover (which he was). This is done as if by magic: the actress changes her shoes, pours a large glass of water over her head and says “It’s raining”. It then becomes a rehearsal scene between an actress and her director and it is ‘after’ this rehearsal that their relationship really blossoms. From rehearsal to love. Possible and impossible: “Ah, if only I was ten years younger”, Vogler sighs, a line written by Bergman and which Frank Vercruyssen pokes fun at while half fulfilling his wish. Slipped behind the title ‘Après la répétition’ is another: ‘Après l’amour’. The so-called rehearsal scene becomes a real act of love. This circling narrative style is a tg STAN trait, and here it reaches its climax.”

“Both give a dazzling performance of living theatre in the making, as if the words are being simultaneously written and spoken. This is a tg Stan trademark, and also the essence of theatre. According to a line in the script, it is a miracle that stems from the juxtaposition of three essential ingredients “an actor, a word and a spectator.”

“With astonishing ease, we slip from one role into another, from one period to another, from one relationship to another, mother/daughter, theatre director/actor, from past to present, from proximity to distance, from the real to the imaginary and back again. The incredibly labile Georgia Scalliet embodies both the mother and the daughter in a fascinating game of reflections. One moment the daughter merges with her mother, who she says she hates, a once legendary but now has-been actress, a pitiful and poisonous alcoholic who desperately tries to win back the director’s love and respect and start over. At another moment the actress shows with her irrepressible energy just how different from her she is, claiming to be attracted to her partner herself. With great finesse and humour, Frank Vercruyssen plays the director who tries to maintain distance at all times, to avoid sentimentalism and the clichés and platitudes of bourgeois theatre, doing everything in his power to retain control of a situation which gradually slips from his grasp. He reassures himself with the objects, the table, the armchair and the chairs which have served in other situations and which are still loyal to their post. One cannot say as much of the actors and actresses – including himself – who cannot be held in check, whether playing their own role or that of another. Vertiginous!”