This is not a review of the opening of the Holland Festival (HF16)

So you can get too close to a work of art. I don't even know if it really applies to paintings, that toxic fumes can rise from them, as some claim, but it certainly applies to theatre art. During the opening of the Holland Festival 2016, I was sitting in the front row of the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg. Normally already not the best place for those who want to keep a bit of an overview of what is happening on stage. For the occasion of 'Die Stunde da wir nichts voneinander wussten', the stage had also been raised by half a metre, which meant I spent about four-fifths of the time watching actors' heads bounce over a light rail.

So I can't offer you a review of the opening, except that this adaptation - made by two highly regarded Estonian directors with 52 German actors, dancers and singers - of Peter Handke's 1992 textless classic did strike me as very 'Catholic'. The beautiful, Gregorian-like choral singing by hidden singers in the auditorium must have contributed to this. (*****)(!), but also the rather carnivalesque nature of the actors' play(*)(?!).

There, their proximity also avenged itself. I saw their heads at very close range, and those heads were clearly bent on making the last row of the third balcony join in the inner turmoil of their characters. So the heads passing in front of me were rather overacting: rolling eyes, amazing grimaces, and grand gestures. With that, it became an evening of pantomime for beginners.

Handke's original piece aims to give an illusion of an ordinary town square, where reality scripted is. The performance I experienced made me feel like I could witness some of it from under a manhole cover. Not very happy in other words.

Was it that bad for everyone? I don't think so. Afterwards, I went among the audience to gauge opinions, and they were generally fairly positive (***). Especially if you were sitting on the first balcony of the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg, so level with the royal box with Willem Alexander and Maxima in it, you had exactly the framed view that this performance requires (****). Sitting on the side balconies, you were distracted by the actors who, after each left-to-right transition, had to change and change clothes at lightning speed for yet another crossing as another of the four hundred characters (**). So sitting in one of the first four rows, you only saw those heads bouncing by (*).

I think these circumstances meant that about a quarter of the 900-plus invitees only had a half-successful opening, and all because of technical and production glitches, which had left the festival organisers with an almost impossible task.

This play would have done best in the Rabo Hall of the Stadsschouwburg. There, the stands slope sufficiently to give everyone a good view, especially when the stage has to be raised by half a metre because of the turntable needed for the set. Only: the Rabozaal has insufficient capacity for all the guests you have to invite to such a royal opening. Then again, the only other Amsterdam theatre with enough capacity, Carré, has such a high stage of its own that the seats in the stalles could not have been sold. Hence this compromise. Probably. Though we will never know for sure.

Let's hope visitors to the remaining performances of this series are not placed in those first four rows. It will save them a few neck muscles and a tainted mood.