Studio 100 has done it again: their new musical “Red Star Line” has recently started its run in Puurs where a vast industrial hangar was converted into a high-tech theater. (Computer-guided set pieces and the audience’s grandstand move about to change the scenery for each scene.)
This time, the subject is the shipping company Red Star Line that took 3 million European migrants from Antwerp to New York between 1871 and 1934 in gigantic cruise ships over 200 meter long. You got it by now: this story comes from the same well as the Titanic minus the iceberg. (Antwerp has a Red Star Line Museum.)
Belgian film composer Steve Willaert has written the musical.
Dependable Flemish actors such as Jelle Cleymans, Jonas Van Geel and Peter Van de Velde fill the major roles. Ianthe Tavernier was a new face and voice for me.
This show beats anything you can see on Broadway or in Las Vegas.