Het nut van de nacht is written in the form of a dialogue between two characters and is very much a fairytale. The text goes back to one of Jan Fabre's favourite themes: the night. The male character in the story is a salt-seller. He considers the salt his body produces as his both ultimate and useless merchandise. Consequently, he tries not to sweat, for this would be merely a waste of this valuable product. The extraction of salt takes place largely at night, the favourite time of the seekers and the dreamers, and it takes a huge effort on his part. The course of the story comprises a chance nocturnal meeting with a female character who says that she is a fly. Their conversation is at times light-hearted and then again more serious. They sound one another out verbally, sometimes warily and sometimes more directly. They talk about the essence of the night, of dreams. For the salt-seller the night is a means of being productive while for the fly-woman it is much more a goal in itself, one you can enjoy, a setting in which you can immerse yourself and disappear in anonymity. On a different level, in the salt-seller you recognise a metaphor for the artist and his destiny, and in the fly a person who seizes the day and has no mission. Het Nut van de Nacht is an allegorical confrontation between two world-views. The text does not advocate a particular viewpoint, since the two characters display both paradoxes and a certain measure of innocence.
Matthias Schoenaerts worked with Jan Fabre on the preparation of this play reading.
This performance has been cancelled.