Vincent Hennebicq is a Belgian actor, director and author. His latest play “La Bombe Humaine” (The Human Bomb) is the story of the ecological awareness of a woman in a consumerist society. Without making the audience guilty about the climate crisis, the play questions the reality of eco-anxiety and the role that culture can take in the political arena.
Missions Publiques. Your play “The Human Bomb” captures your story and how the anger of inaction in the face of global warming. When did the realization appear? What was your wake-up call?
Vincent Hennebicq. My answer is a bit “cliché” but it is linked to the fact of having had children and having to give them answers about the future. Once you have crossed the barrier of realizing the truth and taking climate change seriously, there is no turning back. You start to open your eyes, to get more and more information, to discuss it, and everything becomes more and more real, more and more concrete. And that makes you want to act. What drives me crazy is to think that so many people have known for more than 50 years and that, in spite of this, things are not improving faster.
It’s also what we ask ourselves throughout the play. “The Human Bomb” demystifies the truth that we have known because of problems that have surfaced for years without actually wanting to name them. At the beginning of the show, I share my passion for horror and science-fiction films, and recall the moment I watched a dystopian and apocalyptic film while my children were sleeping. Suddenly, I wondered about the likelihood of such a story: what I would do with my children, etc. Every time I thought about it, I felt broken, lost. So, I made research. Each book or documentary I watched led me to another and so on. For over a year, with Eline Schumacher – my friend and colleague on “The Human bomb”, we took the time to question ourselves but also to interview psychologists, politicians, climate specialists etc. to try to understand what was happening and especially why we were not acting. And then we interviewed a whole series of people in the street at random, to get testimonies from everyday life.
The show is in a way the making of a year spent together thinking. We share everything, our love stories, creation of humankind, even the questions raised by doing a show on ecology in an energy-consuming theater… We talk about love, loss, procrastination, we replay the encounters with different personalities that have upset our relationship with the world… The show is built in two parts: the first is focused on our awareness and the time it took us to realize what was happening; the second, entitled “Realistic Utopias” relates our relationship to the world, to the living, to what we would like to see happen, notably through encounters with those who are fighting for the world of tomorrow; those who have decided to fight for the future and who give us hope.
"However, it should certainly not be to bring solutions either, but to bring stories that question us, that invite us to debate, to meet, to reflect together. We have always needed common narratives, both to reflect on the past and to question the future.
Vincent Hennebicq
Director of the “Human Bomb”
Missions Publiques. Your play combines compelling monologues, music and testimonies. Do you think that culture is the ultimate renewable resource to tackle awareness raising? Especially in regards of the climate crisis.
Vincent Hennebicq. The most important thing for me was to give the floor to a character who doesn’t want to take up these issues. Because it’s not fun, because we’re lazy and so we procrastinate, because we know that it might be a bit depressing… We really wanted to approach all this in a humorous, light-hearted way, so as not to make people feel guilty. The road to awareness is difficult. Living in 2022 and accepting that we have to slow down while everything urges us to accelerate is not easy. Finally, we specifically created a music for the show, because music is a powerful vector of emotions. Sometimes words are not enough, and music allows us to breathe, to give another point of view and in a way also gives the possibility to include nature’s voice.
Culture is, in my opinion, deeply political. The fact of bringing a story, a show, a film, an exhibition, to the world’s attention is necessarily political. I wouldn’t say that it is its number one mission, I would say that it is one of its many roles. However, it should certainly not be to bring solutions either, but to bring stories that question us, that invite us to debate, to meet, to reflect together. We have always needed common narratives, both to reflect on the past and to question the future.
Missions Publiques. How can the cultural community participate in the collective effort? And how can it be made more inclusive and ultimately more participatory?
Vincent Hennebicq. The world of culture has always been in the grip of current events. It’s high time everyone talked about global warming, we should have done it back in the 1970s… More and more artists are looking at ways to reduce their carbon footprint, both in their creations and in their plays and shows. More and more theaters are surrounding themselves with eco-consultants to rethink the lighting system, the heating system… There are artistic communities that organize themselves to recycle and reuse sets. There are really a lot of things that are being organized. Without forgetting the carbon footprint of culture, I would also not forget the necessary impact of the displacement of culture, and the need for us to hear stories from all over the world, in order to move together towards a desirable future. Finally, it is obvious that there is a collective effort to be made, but let’s not forget either that the simple fact of banning private jets would be much more effective than increasing environmental taxes. Beyond the awareness of global warming, there is an awareness of climate justice, and globally an “ethic of responsibility” to reflect upon.
Regarding inclusivity, I think this is the question that all people in charge of cultural institutions ask themselves. Theater is scary for many reasons. I’ve always thought of the theater as an agora, a place where we can think together. In the case of global warming, it is particularly necessary to discuss the issue with the whole population, because we cannot talk about global warming without talking about climate justice. It is the poorest categories who will suffer the most, even though they are the least responsible. All these questions must therefore be at the center of the democratic debate. It is necessary to inform and to create debate. We are trying to do this, notably through workshops in classrooms or meetings after shows. But this is not enough. I find it regrettable to focus these questions on the young generations as if they had to solve the problems caused by the previous generations. This is also an injustice. But I realize that I’m not quite answering the question. I don’t know how to make culture more inclusive and participatory if I’m completely honest, but I am convinced that we must try through each show to create forms that encourage word-of-mouth, that make people want to debate, and, I hope, to act.
