De Duivels

In the early 17th century, the provincial French town of Loudun was hit by a wave of hysteria. A nun, Jeanne des Anges, was accused of being possessed by a demon. The local authorities had reason to fear this demon as it terrorised the convent by night with its obscene behaviour. The progressive and sexually promiscuous priest Urbain Grandier was soon identified as the likeliest culprit for having sent the demon. This accusation kicked off one of the most infamous witch trials in history. All this occurred against a backdrop of significant scientific progress, the stirrings of the Enlightenment and increasing atheism. The “cancelled” devils fight back: they return stronger, more powerful and more rigidly conservative than ever. Loudun is transformed into a grand political theatre and the nuns and Grandier into actors in a legal spectacle that wrestles with the new social issues of the day. Are the nuns really possessed by an evil supernatural force or is this a collective attack on centuries of the oppression of women? Is Grandier guilty or is he the scapegoat for a too-rapidly changing world? People came from all over Europe to the town to watch the public trial, which reached all levels of society. Kings, clergy, academics and citizens alike puzzled over the truth of the allegations and the consequences of the verdict. Over the centuries since, many artists and historians have weighed in on the strange events of those years. The non-profit Krapp vzw took its primary inspiration from the nonfiction novel The Devils of Loudun (1952) by Aldous Huxley, and the historical work The Possession at Loudun (1970) by Michel de Certeau. The performance presents this historical case in the form of a theatrical trial with the public as the jury. This jury is confronted with a society suffering a crisis of faith: the old unassailable truths shaken to the core by fear and doubt.

Theme

Loudun and Bruges were extremely similar cities in the 17th century, which makes Bruges a particularly good setting for a performance of this piece. The city still retains many traces of the late medieval world: The Devils brings them back to life. The Reie Festival’s thematic pillars – faith, ritual, the battle for truth – and the accompanying sources, from religious relics and remnants of convents to a wealth of documentation on the persecution of witches, and paintings such as “The Cloister of the Sisters”, fit seamlessly with Krapp’s research.