The play 'Heart' is one for your bucket list. In other words, the play 'Heart', created by Matzer Theatre Productions as an adaptation of Lisette Lewin's book 'Heart of Barbed Wire', is a play you really must have seen. Why? I'll give you 4 reasons why.
1: The book is no longer on sale
Lisette Lewin wrote a book in 1992 that festively probed into the freshly opened wounds of the Second World War. 10 years after the film Shoah and Judith Herzberg's play 'Leedvermaak', the Netherlands was slowly but surely starting to get used to the idea that 'we' had not all been in the resistance during the German occupation. Lisette Lewin added to this by allowing readers to empathise with a woman whose life by the old standards could be summed up as nothing but super-faulty: Jew-hater before, Kraut whore during, and personal revenge angel with a false Jewish identity after the war.
Thanks to the sober, feathery narrative style, you catch yourself not condemning the woman, but also unable to approve of her, while she does get into your head. Books can do that: get inside your head like that. So that book is no longer for sale, and the publisher needs to do something about that.
2: Matzer is the best book editor
Madeleine Matzer understands what it takes to bring a book to the stage. Because that is harder than you think. You cannot simply set the dialogues apart and stick actors to them. Literary characters are usually too complex for that, in fact. In this case, by dividing the main role and the role of the narrator in the book between two actresses, you do justice to as many aspects of the book as possible: the multi-coloured character, the ironic distance of the narrator and the mindfuck which, of course, reading always is: you, the reader, read the words and so they become your words. Whether you want to or not.
The trick of dividing a literary character between at least two actors is not an invention of Matzer, but they have achieved great finesse in it.
3: Wendell Jaspers is always worth a trip
From the moment I saw her throwing beer as a drama school student during a rowdy youth play in the always sunny Almere, it was clear that Wendell Jaspers was going to be a very big one. The actress has the androgynous look that can turn people into stars. She is bouncy and light, but has a dark edge that lends depth to every role she plays. At least as long as the director lets her emphasise that light side: those who only pay attention to the darkness haven't got it right. Madeleine Matzer, namesake of the company bringing 'Heart', lets Wendell Jaspers shine. We get enough darkness as it is.
4: The tone.
It has been said before, but cannot be repeated enough: what makes both the book and the performance unique is the tone. The story is bad, the narrator does terrible things, but asks us not to judge. We need to understand her, without being understanding. Lisette Lewin does not lift a moral finger, remains factual without becoming cold and dares us to zoom in on private life without all the time pouring the doom of holocaust over events. That requires a very special ability, dant nothing to do with forgiveness, but everything to do with wisdom. Others still like to add that doom, and in doing so they destroy everything. That this play by Matzer remains light, and is even laughable here and there, is a mega achievement, and it works.
So is there nothing at all to criticise about this performance? Unfortunately, there are. The clothes. The fit. Is there no tailor left under the great rivers who knows how to make a decent fit?
Hart is yet to be seen at a theatre near you. Find your show.
Listen to a Marathon interview with Lisette Lewin from 1995
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français 