Matthias Mooij (1976-2014): a career that should have been there.

He could have become an important director, but was at the wrong time, in the wrong place. In the end, his illness fatally bothered Matthias Mooij. Yesterday, this still young theatre-maker died of lung cancer, more than a year and a half after the premiere of his first large-venue production: Mogadishu. With that performance, of a play written by the English writer Vivienne Franzmann, Mooij put a new tone in the theatre: no longer did he fall back on theatre-familiar, mainly German and Austrian repertoire, opting instead for British authors.

The director put forward in February 2013 by the then staff as artistic director of De Utrechtse Spelen also sought a different justification for his plays. Mogadishu, which is about the aftermath of a possible racist incident in a schoolyard, was provided with a theoretical framework by quotes from controversial British sociologist Theodor Dalrymple, who wants to blame social inequality not always on circumstances, but also on inbuilt badness in people.

Not that Mooij emerged as an ardent supporter of this 'social Darwinism', but he did expose another nerve in society, and that had important could be for modern Dutch theatre. How important that was already, we also know now that Ivo van Hove Mooij mentioned as the one who pointed out to him the theatrical power of Ayn Rand's work 'The Fountainhead'. Rand and Dalrymple are kindred spirits in their vision of society. Last June, Van Hove made A stage adaptation of The Fountainhead, which by now also international much applause.

Mooij was an interim pawn at The Utrecht Games. He was left over from the mess which had arisen after financial mismanagement by the previous management, led by spectacle director Jos Thie. Had it been up to the then interim management, Mooij would certainly have continued as the new artistic foreman of the troubled Utrecht theatre company. However, history turned out differently: Mooij fell ill, and behind the scenes work was done to appoint a new board and artistic director. That eventually became Thibaud Delpeut, who, like Mooij, learnt the trade at Ivo van Hove's Toneelgroep Amsterdam.

(update: few details adjusted due to not quite matching view between sources at DUS and current leadership)