Language is music. Sometimes we forget that. Then we think language is a way of conveying objective meanings. Kind of silly. Language is food for all the senses. No strumming is needed under that. That's pure opera without embellishments. The English-language performance 'tis Pity she's a whore' I saw at the Holland Festival yesterday proves that. Even if you don't understand the seventeenth-century phrases, it is a joy to listen to.
And if not, there is plenty to watch. What a crazy ensemble there is on stage. Company 'Cheek by Jowl' has been at the forefront of British theatre for over thirty years. The actors have been playing theatres all over the world, including this one, and it reflects on them. So these actors are not only good, they also have a great sense of humour. Every deep pass arrives in a way that gives the fellow actor a chance to score with a legendary gliding dive.
Such ensemble acting is therefore rare. In the Netherlands, we used to have it in the performances of the flamboyant Flemish director Dirk Tanghe, who once made a version of Molière's Tartuffe in Utrecht that still lingers in the minds of those few people who were there.
But Cheek by Jowl travels the world. This 1628 play about a fatal love between a brother and sister, adultery and abuse of power captured the hearts of spectators in almost every major world city before it now descends, for two days only, on Amsterdam. Two sold-out theatres at Amsterdam's Bellevue theatre. Cool, but how many people is that?
Too little.
It remains unfortunate that the Holland Festival is taking on a megalomaniacal project like War Horse put in Carré, in front of 2,000 spectators at a time, and show this topper only to a handful of chosen few. Shouldn't a statement have been made here?
Shouldn't someone have stuck their neck out here?
You may say.
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français 
