The Notebook and The Proof

Our love for Belgium doesn’t stop at frites and chocolate; the Flemish have as much a knack for the avant-garde as their Dutch neighbors. Take De Onderneming, the minimalist, director-free company that is the latest import in the Guthrie’s World Stage Series. This four-member troupe of street performers will reprise The Notebook and The Proof, a company-created double bill that was a smash at last year’s Edinburgh Theater Festival. Juggling characters, set elements, and the poetic texts of Hungarian author Agota Kristof (translated into English, mind you), the company tells the story of two brothers in a war-torn country. To survive, they devise a language and moral code all their own that, inevitably, tears them apart. Years later, when one tries to reunite with the other, the brothers’ history–that version of truth they invented together–is still there, waiting to be wrestled with. 700 First St. N., Minneapolis; 612-377-2224; www.guthrietheater.org