At last: National Theatre examines 'German Model'

Good going, over there in The Hague. After the company announced earlier this week that it would take a young creator into its artistic leadership before his death, today follows the announcement that Het Nationale Toneel wants to merge with the Koninklijke Schouwburg. This would mean that, for the first time in a long time in the Netherlands, the performer of a city theatre would again have a say in where it plays and the audience that enters it.

According to the press release, the study is due to be completed as early as February. That's astronomically short, and that means they are actually already out, over there in The Hague. So if that were the case, it would mean a revolution in theatre land that we have been waiting for for a long time.

Because what is it like right now? Now we have a division between makers, in a company, who make things. They want audiences for that, but not necessarily, because audiences, that's something for theatres. So next to that we have theatres, which present things. Sometimes they have a fixed deal with a company, like, for example, Het Nationale Toneel and De Koninklijke Schouwburg, or Toneelgroep Amsterdam and the Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam.

These regular collaborations go well as long as they go well, but things go wrong just a little too often for it to be palatable. Then the director of the theatre has a plan that causes a plan of the company to fall apart. After all, the director of the theatre thinks it is his job in life to have the auditorium full. And that in turn is something the creator of art is not supposed to care about. Used to be. Was not allowed by the subsidiser.

That, however, has changed. The creator of art today has a tremendous interest in having the halls full, and so theatre and company are much more concerned with the same thing than they used to be. So why separate? Much better when the whole building and the whole company have one common goal: to be a house with real hosts, who know exactly what is happening in their house, who is welcome there, and what can be seen there. The house can now really connect with its audience.

In other countries, it has been done for centuries. With good results. Dutch art lovers always look with envy at our eastern neighbours, where city theatres not only have tubs of money, but also their own houses, fixed audiences and flexible programming.

Fun detail: in the males' battle between old greats Theu Boermans and Johan Simons, Theu is so once again outpacing Johan. After all, Simons is going to work in Rotterdam, Ghent, Hamburg and the Ruhr and De Betuwe to create a huge mega-sized pan-European theatre company, but without a home of his own. While he would love to have that too. A house of his own, like he now has in Munich.

Theu is faster now. Again. That has to hurt.