Spectacular premiere of musical ‘40-45’ blows everyone away: “Completely overwhelmed. World class”
Under massive BV attendance, the musical ‘40-45’ premiered yesterday at the Studio 100 pop-up theater in Puurs. Because this gigantic production has two equal casts, two celebratory performances also took place on the same day: one at 3 pm and one at 8 pm. Unseen in Flanders, just like the spectacle itself. No expense was spared to blow the audience away. Literally even. For where predecessor ‘14-18’ only added the magic of a moving grandstand, now an airplane flies over the grandstands and a train thunders through between the spectators.This technical feat made the nerves of cast and crew tense, but afterwards everyone could breathe a sigh of relief. “When you get such thunderous applause, you can only enjoy it,” said a glowing lead actor Jelle Cleymans. “Despite some difficult technical tryouts, everyone was still very relaxed playing. I'm so proud of what we put down here.” His co-star Jonas Van Geel even had to wipe away a tear during the deafening final applause. “That's what this performance does to you. It touches you to the very depths of your soul. And now the train has left until March 24th. That's a long time, but I have the feeling that many people want to see this.” Absolutely: over 250,000 tickets have already been sold. Nathalie Meskens, who plays the Jewish character Sarah, looks back on the premiere with a positive feeling. “I think we've written a piece of history. And for me as an actress, it was a huge challenge to play these emotional scenes. People mostly know my comedic side, but now they see a very vulnerable Nathalie at work. Fortunately, I was allowed to let my tears flow freely in this performance.” And so did the audience present. Everyone left the hall with a lump in their throat. Natalia even with tears in her eyes. “My dad experienced the war, so this brought up a lot,” says the singer who came to support her best friend Nathalie Meskens. “I cried almost constantly. This performance was truly of unprecedented world class.” Tine Embrechts agrees. “I'm not actually a fan of musicals, but this spectacle completely blew me away.” Studio 100 boss Gert Verhulst addressed the audience before the performance, clearly emotional, with a poignant message. “Let us learn from the past, and let us never let this happen again,’ he said, referring to World War II. “We must ensure that the extremism that occasionally surfaces now cannot prevail. We must ensure that this dark chapter in our history remains turned and that history never repeats itself.”
