Previously, her performance allowed her to think heartbreakingly through love, infatuation and heartbreak. Now her performance is about love in the broadest possible sense.
Previously, she made theatre in which she struggled with questions. Now, she shows that struggle much less and shares the answers she has found with the audience.
Earlier, she could still argue that as far as she was concerned, nature could wipe out humanity with flames and tidal waves. Now she feels the need to not want that very thing.
At Love a new Laura van Dolron is on stage.
Autobiographical
Laura van Dolron philosophises in front of the audience. Philosophising presumes a certain detachment. What is special about Laura's performances is that they closely follow the line in her life. In her latest production Love this is clearer than ever.
Her intensive working method landed her a burnout. She quit for a while. Then a big loss came on top of that. Her first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. It was this that made her find her drive to make theatre again. And now she is on stage, pregnant again.
'After my miscarriage, I was surrounded with great care in the hospital. I talked intensively with the nurses and the gynaecologist. That triggered so much fire in me! I asked myself: 'What is the universal value of the loss I experienced?' In dealing with questions like that, I felt the need to make theatre again, to interpret things in language, to open up my personal life to the world. I was back to theatre. When you make theatre, there is always a lot of ballast. Reviews, flyer texts, audience numbers. I didn't worry about that now. What I had found again was the core: me, the language and the world. That is what matters to me. That's the triangle that allows me to reflect and get close to myself.'
'From the hospital, I called my business manager Marc Meijer. He expected to get a patient on the line. Instead, he got an inspired theatre maker. He guided me through my return to theatre, but also helped me occasionally to remind myself not to fall into the same traps again.'
Love in the broadest sense of the word
Laura's new performance was to be something stand-up-like, a funny anti-performance that was to put an end to the glorification of romantic love. There are so many other kinds of love, she wanted to say. She went to work with actor Steve Aernouts, with whom she had previously Sartre says sorry made.
'While working, what I had experienced in the hospital came closer and closer to me. I became aware of how much love had surrounded my loss.'
'Gradually Steve disappeared from the concept. It was such a personal story. If he played along, people would immediately see a father in him and that was not the point. We then decided in all friendship that Love had to be a solo performance. It's really fantastic the way Steve responded. He chivalrously stepped aside, in no way made it an ego issue. And all this even though this decision would put him out of work for a few months.'
For Love Laura collected examples of love from her own life and those of others, up to and including an Indian chief. 'They are often selfless actions that people don't consciously think about. Actions of people who don't intend to do anything loving at all. But when I tell about it, the audience immediately understands that it is love. My friend and I wanted to bring flowers to our child's grave at Christmas. It turned out that my mother had already been there and very thoughtfully placed pine branches over the grave. I thought that was love. A tender gesture with which she gave warmth. This is one of the examples in the performance. My mother was at the premiere and asked afterwards: 'Did I do that?' She had forgotten. It had been so obvious to her: briefly covering my grandchild. She hadn't even had to think about that. Other people whose loving actions I recount were also surprised when they heard them reflected in the performance.'
Singles
Love is something between two or more people. Can singles identify with this performance? Laura has no doubt about that. She received many positive reactions from singles.
The show features a story about a single person, who, before going on holiday, puts a note on the table for herself: 'Welcome back'. Isn't this a bit tart? 'People have to laugh at it. It is humorous, but in a gentle way. I also chose gentle humour in previous work. Humour doesn't have to destroy something, attack people, comb people off. That story about the note is about myself. I was like that when I lived alone. I was alone a lot too. I knew it was risky to put this little story in Love include. It soon has something of: "You have to love yourself first before you can love another". If you talk about that abstractly, it quickly becomes meditation, yoga, but in the wrong way. And self-love is close to narcissism. Still, I felt this belonged, but limited myself to this concrete little story. That note was a kind of communication from myself to someone in the future. The person I would be after returning. So in a way, it was something between two people after all.'
Love is less personal than many people think. 'The script covers 40 pages. Only three of them are about what I experienced in hospital. A miscarriage is something very personal, which many women can't talk about. That's probably why the show comes across as so personal.'
Improving the world
However, her hospital experience, and now her pregnancy, did influence how Laura van Dolron philosophises. 'I have found a different kind of need to want to improve the world. I see even more reason now than before to want people to be kind to each other. That is something that comes to mind when you are going to bring a child into the world. For that child, it is important that there is love around her. The fact that women are bringing life into the world evokes a kind of piety, a protective force in them. That has a big impact on how women think. I feel the need to make everything right in the world stronger than ever.'
In previous performances, Laura van Dolron could reason fatalistically. 'That changed when my nephew was born. At the time, I was much preoccupied with nature and thought it should win out over man. Nature as the good versus the bad humanity. I thought: let there be big waves and flames, but now that I thought that would also burn my nephew, I no longer found that such an attractive thought.' This realisation was given a place in Laura's performance What is needed.
Purified
Laura now speaks more than before on the basis that a crisis can lead to catharsis and new insights. Eckhart Tolle, author vasn Power of Now, is an example to her in that regard, as is the Dalai Lama. 'People who report on a purification are not much in the theatre. I am doing so now and know that I am flouting a theatre law by doing so. Not because I want to be cool with it - look at me breaking a theatre law - but because I don't shy away from morality and giving answers. That was also the case in my earlier performances What's Needed and Sartre Says Sorry.'
In the past, Laura garnered high praise as she showed audiences step by step how she explored all sides of a philosophical question. 'When I talk about the things it is in Love about, then it is not so important for the audience to see how I struggle with my subject. That struggle is unimportant compared to what it is in Love about. It is nothing compared to my pregnancy. It's like funeral speeches. In those, the speaker also doesn't tell how difficult it was to write the speech. In Love, I choose to share with the audience what I have found in my loss rather than root for them with what I have lost.'
What Laura tries is similar to what pastors and spiritual leaders do. 'For people who don't know me, that's jarring, she realises. People who do know me are used to it from me.' One of the points on which she was so praised was the virtuosity with which she put together her speech. 'I used to think when I made a performance, "What are people going to criticise?" Those are creator problems, actress fears. Then I made sure I tackled that criticism in advance. I don't want that kind of cleverness now. I don't find virtuosity so interesting now. The way I am on stage now, as a pregnant woman, I play a character just like in previous performances, but stay even closer to myself now. I want to keep it pure, just say what I think. I assume the audience will want to go along with what I tell.'
Emotionally professional
Laura has the experience that this works well. When she is on stage, she sees everyone in the room. She notices how her story comes across. 'I saw the gynaecologist sitting there who treated me in the hospital. She was crying in the front row. I loved that, because her profession demands a lot of professionalism from her. And now I could see that professionalism goes well with emotions. That's how I want to be too: emotionally professional.'
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