Published in 1989, Marguerite Duras' Le coupeur d’eau (The Cutter-off of Water) is a moving short story inspired by a tragic fait divers: the suicide of an entire family after a waterworks employee cut off the water.
Based on a novel by Marguerite Duras, Dirk Roofthooft sketches the poignant portrait of a man tormented by guilt after he, as an official of the water company, turns off the water supply to a family who subsequently throw themselves and their children in front of a train. Whereas Duras aloofly reports the facts, Roofthooft goes in search of the words that were not spoken, the explanation that was never offered. It affords the simple workman a face, the anonymous executor of an inhuman task, who also became a victim, isolated and stigmatised, as a result of his deed. All facets of a destructive self-confrontation resound in the composition and soundscapes by Diederik De Cock: from the apology to the doubt, from the anger to the despair.
"Roofthooft is a born master storyteller". (Cobra.be, 18 March 2013)
Credits
- Texts • Marguerite Duras / Dirk Roofthooft
- Saxophone • Piet Rebel
- Composition • Diederik De Cock in collaboration with Piet Rebel
- Direction • Dirk Roofthooft / Diederik De Cock
- Actor • Dirk Roofthooft
- Lyrics • Dirk Roofthooft
- Video • Dirk Roofthooft
- Sound design • Diederik De Cock
- Guitar | Drums • Diederik De Cock
| Location | Dates | Hour | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CC Zwaneberg Heist-op-den-Berg (Heist-op-den-Berg) +32 15 25 07 70 www.zwaneberg.be | 9/4/2016 | 20:00 | |
| Palais des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi (Charleroi) 071 31 12 12 www.pba.be | 21/4/2016 22/4/2016 | 20:00 20:00 |