We say goodbye to a festival that was once again unique. For the last time? #decision

There was a time, when art did not have to draw full theatres to be accepted by the population. After all, on a municipality's total budget, something like art costs no more than a penny, so you don't get worse, while at best you can only get better. This is how The Rotterdam Theatre's International Choice once started.

Now, 10 years later, the festival full of unexpected, controversial, delicious and bewildering theatre had its last edition under the leadership of co-founder Annemie Vanackere. She leaves for art mecca Berlin, at a time when in Rotterdam a culture alderman in power who thinks art is a nice sport, but one that has to keep its own trousers on and the halls full. So it could well be the last edition ever, because we can well imagine that Rotterdam's cultural producers are getting fed up with operating in such an ungrateful climate.

What are we going to miss about that contrarian festival in the country's finest theatre? The last week of The Choice is a perfect summary. Lotte van den Berg's theatre, for instance, is one of those things that you either love, or, on the contrary, brush away as thick-headed drivel. Her show Les Spectateurs was the result of a six-month stay, with her actors, in Kinshasa, the capital of Congo. Our reviewer Wijbrand Schaap remained doubtful:

"What to do with it is a very good question. Nor does the performance seem to ask for interpretation: the images are what they are, do with them what you see fit. You could say that this one-hour piece is a bit thin as the result of half a year's company stay in Africa and a rehearsal process of a few months. You might also not say that. You could also say that what was put into that performance is actually a lot."

A similar kind of unadventurousness, which can lead to non-committal, was on display at Miet Warlop's performance Talkshow. The combination of lecture on dramaturgy and screening of slapstick could hardly charm Daniel Bertina. He wrote:

"Yet something gnaws at Talkshow. It all feels just a bit too non-committal. This has to do with the way Warlop moves across the stage: completely unimpressive and unperturbed in everything she does, in the best tradition of the it-will-make-me-a-worst-or-anyone-understands-performance art. Such an attitude suffices in a gallery, but in the theatre it is not so exciting to watch."

So had it all become too artsy after all? Or are our reviewers too affected by the new zeitgeist? Do we only want plain language and tasty chunks on stage? The answer is 'no'. When Daniel Bertina attended the performance La Fin du Western two days later, he experienced something that some audience members would find too bad for words, but where he, in a compellingly written reflection, utility and, above all, necessity of could prove:

"The players run into the stands and chase some of the crowd like cattle towards Gbagbo's bunker on the playing floor. A kind of grim hazing ritual takes place there, out of sight of the spectators in the stands. Amidst the huddled audience in the bunker, one of the dancers is alternately surrounded by the others each time. Like drilsergeants, they screech commands into his ears at high speed. "SIT! LIG! SPRING!" - as he shuffles through the crowd like an epileptic. You almost feel complicit."

Of a completely different order is the theatre of the American Richard Maxwell. His performance Neutral Hero, about extreme petty-bourgeois rural America, chopped into reviewer Jowi Schmitz with its extremely bare design and ditto playing style:

"It goes on and on. As if an invisible metronome is ticking along with the piece in the background. Invisible but unwavering. The audience shifts restlessly under that tight yoke. The viewers, like the players, are drawn into that rhythm, into that atmosphere, with subtle lighting. Sometimes red, sometimes blue, sometimes white colours the room. A steam locomotive that slowly rumbles over you, turns and rumbles over you again. You still think it's not too bad but each time you become a little flatter. It's unsettling, but also impressive. In a few years, you may not remember the story, but the atmosphere etches itself in your mind."

The International Choice shows theatre that crosses all borders, and we are not used to that in the Netherlands. At least, that is what actress and theatre maker Sarah Moeremans thinks. She is literally artist in residence at the Rotterdam Schouwburg for a year and has set up her study right next to the entrance.During the International Choice, she took six students from drama schools in the Netherlands by the hand through the wonders of international theatre. Reporter Fransien van der Putt recorded the following sentences from her mouth.

"The acting profession has not developed very much. Do-it-yourself realism reigns supreme. A festival of this quality is a super good opportunity for young actors to experience different views of acting first-hand. They are confronted with extremes and made to think. I want them to learn to choose, not to sit around waiting to be chosen. I want them to learn to see the richness instead of acting as victims."

And that, dear viewers, applies not only to Dutch stage actors, but to all of us. Next year in Rotterdam again?