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On a stage bathed in dimmed lights, halfway between a shady dive bar and a trading room, seven of you sit down around blackjack-style wooden tables. You trade hard cash for tokens, and now it's time to invest, sell, outbid each other, and stretch your limits! Whether you're a winner or a loser, whether you pronounce it Lies, eyes, or “Pound, Yen, Euro, Dollar,” £¥€$ is all about money. Trying to reproduce the laws of the market, the Ontroerend Goed company invites you to a high-stakes interactive experience! Their daring gamble: to select eighty members of the audience during each performance and introduce them to the select world of the “1%” richest people on the planet, of the bankers and traders. Their goal: to better understand the global financial system and to make us realise how it impacts our lives. If money can't buy happiness, doesn't it rule the world anyway? “The best way to rob a bank is to own one,” as William K. Black, deputy director of the savings and loans department of California, once put it.


Founded in 1994 in Ghent, the Flemish company Ontroerend Goed, with Alexander Devriendt as its artistic director, writes and produces shows in which every contributor becomes “co-owner” of the work, always on the border between theatre and performance art. Incisive, unpredictable, and often interactive, their creations (A Game of You, Fight Night, Are we not drawn onward to new erA) tour the world and explore the place and relationships between individuals in our societies. This is Ontroerend Goed's first appearance at the Festival d'Avignon. 

With Aurélie Alessandroni, Emilie Bisetti, Cédric Coomans, Karolien De Bleser, Line Destrait, Aurélie Lannoy, Adrien Letartre, Delphine Mertens, Louise Pascal, Florian Pautasso, Jérémie Petrus, Antoine Plaisant, Mathilde Rault, Marie Van Puyvelde

Text Karolien De Bleser, Alexander Devriendt, Joeri Smet, Angelo Tijssens
Translation Aurélie Lannoy
Direction Alexander Devriendt
Stage Design Nick Mattan, vormen
Music Johannes Genard
Costumes Astrid Peeters

Production Ontroerend Goed
Co-production Kunstencentrum Vooruit (Gand), Theatre Royal (Plymouth), Richard Jordan Productions
With the support of Communauté flamande, Province de Flandre Orientale, Ville de Gand
Co-hosting Festival d'Avignon, La Chartreuse-CNES de Villeneuve lez Avignon
With the help of Little Shop of Translations