The great thing about the Fringe is the variety. On Saturday night I saw VOS, a play by Slawomir Mrozek, played sparklingly by Wouter van Oord. Dressed in a shirt of the Dutch national team, with the name VOS on the back, Van Oord plays two monologues with conviction. The tension can be read from his face before the start, but is gone as soon as the actor begins. A fine piece of text theatre, directed by Albert van Andel, among the many more experimental pieces in the Fringe programme.
Of course, special are the performances on location. How does a location benefit the performance? Dunne Muren shows that very well. The play is set in Amsterdam Noord. I cross the IJ by ferry where a bus is waiting. I get headphones on my head and get in. Van der Pekstraat, the stem of a tulip where the petals are the surrounding streets, is the central street in this neighbourhood. The houses are concrete, they have windows with curtains in front of them and all have the same dark blue front door.
On the bus, I imagine myself in a museum. Passers-by belong in this museum and I project the information I hear onto the people walking by. Residents linger here, use this place as a way station or can no longer find the place they once had here. Theatre collective Roma B. shows the soul of Noord in Thin Walls. Three storylines tell past and present of this neighbourhood. I wonder if a passer-by belongs to the play or not. Two Moroccan boys look up as one of the actors wildly whacks around with a broom in the middle of the street. Thin Walls does not put a residential area and its residents under a magnifying glass by taking them into the theatre, but takes the theatre into the neighbourhood. Confrontational and infectious theatre.
Both performances seen on Saturday, September 4.
VOS still on show until Monday 6 September, Thin Walls plays until Saturday 11 September.
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