Homunculus and Trash Day: Double bill of comedy coming to Brussels stage

Two very different short comedies nevertheless find common themes when paired on an upcoming  double bill at the Warehouse Studio Theatre from 14 to 25 April.

Homunculus and Trash Day (white, yellow and blue) are one-act plays staged by the English Comedy Club (ECC). 

While Trash Day is a dark comedy of errors set on an ill-lit Brussels street, Homunculus is a farcical horror-romcom taking place entirely inside an artist’s loft on a stormy day.

But the two plays have many commonalities. Both penned by playwrights under thirty, they capture the speech and everyday anxieties of ‘zillennials’ navigating the hazards of the modern world: from bike-lane parkers to tell-all bloggers.  

Both also reveal their playwrights’ classical backgrounds – Trash Day’s Aravind Dhakshinamoorthy is familiar to local audiences from lead roles with Brussels Shakespeare Society;  Homunculus’ Santiago Mallan has appeared on the New York stage in diverse work from Shakespeare to Shaw and beyond.  

Accordingly, both plays swing between high and low humour worthy of the broadest classical comedy. The characters alternate between neurotic personal concerns in the here and now and sweeping observations on art, truth, humanity and more.  In the case of Homunculus (pictured above and main image), the characters even switch between modern-day ‘mumble-core’ and suddenly elevated iambic verse.

Somehow, each play manages to spin its tale in under an hour, with rapid-fire dialogue and whiplash plot twists to keep the audience on their toes and laughing hard from start to finish. They are light in every sense, including their complex and colourful sets that fold up and pack away before the audience’s eyes. 

 All the more fitting since Trash Day (pictured above) may appear as a Brussels entry at the international FEATS festival in the coming years.  And this August, Homunculus will represent Belgium for a full month at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  Fans can follow the show’s journey from off-off-Broadway hit to independent film, to the Brussels stage and finally to the Fringe Festival at instagram.com/homunculus_26.

All of this is made possible by Brussels’ remarkable anglophone theatre audiences and community – and especially the ECC. Founded in 1909, it is a cornerstone of the capital’s remarkably diverse, deep and broad theatre scene, which boasts as many as 10 companies performing in English. They also overlap with many other ‘homegrown international’ theatres staging plays in Spanish, Italian and more.  

The groups share resources and artists and several share ownership and programming at the Warehouse Studio Theatre in Schaerbeek, where this double bill will perform. 

Despite being a senior doyenne of the Brussels stage, ECC uses its established resources to seek out artistic innovation and actively broaden its artist pool and audience. From a beloved annual panto to more experimental, brand-new plays by young authors, the work is meant to attract new audiences too, who will see themselves reflected in these contemporary takes on classic romance and neurosis.

Audiences are recommended to snap up tickets soon for this exciting double production. The studio theatre frequently sells out its 60 seats, and despite this show running 10 performances, the ECC double bill will likely be no exception.  

Homunculus and Trash Day (white, yellow and blue)
14 to 25 April
Warehouse Studio Theatre
Rue Waelhem 69A
Schaerbeek

Photos: Homunculus ©Nikolaus van der Pas; Trash Day ©Julio César Garza

Tom Mallan, the director of Homunculus, is an American stage director living in Brussels since 2018