Wine Dierickx ( Wunderbaum) and Ward Weemhoff (The Hot Shop) are an artist couple and we will know it. Engaging and with humour, they take us into their private lives or that which we think that is their private life. Know after all, we don't do it.
The premise and inspirations of Privacy are obvious beforehand. Philosopher Slavoj Zizek, facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and sociologist Richard Sennet are deployed in the programme book to make me, the viewer, ask the 'right' critical questions. What is intimacy still worth when we know everything? Can you trust someone who uses their private life as a tool? Have we become deaf and blind to reason and addicted to the rancid private facts about Famous People?
Dierickx and Weemhof will join John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the Hilton[hints]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN_ykcjHhRc[/hints] replay and also Jef Koons and his porn bride Cicciolina. Then they will be naked, washing our ears with anecdotes about sex and shit. Naked as anti-Adam and Eve, who, after all, experienced shame, covered up and were driven out of paradise.
'This is intimacy porn' the actors shout at us. Naked and stylised, they engage in very personal conversations at megaphone volume. The vulnerable thus becomes hilarious or tragic, whatever you want. Nice is Dierickx's anecdote about Weemhoff's dick. She had seen it professionally 150 times. When the dick came into the picture privately, it took time for her to start seeing that public as something too private. The confusion that 'the tyranny of intimacy' damage, could not have been better illustrated.
The performance may not contain any big surprises in terms of content, which is usually the case when I go to see 'Romeo and Juliet', but the questions it raises are relevant.
With the flood of revelations about things like IVF, anal sex and lactose intolerance, you can't help but think about your own circles of intimacy. What do I share with my friends, what do I share on facebook, what do I share on twitter And what am I not sharing? Should I be alarmed that a cat picture is more likes and shares delivers than a petition against climate change? Weemhoff and Dierickx use themselves, each other and their craft to amuse and alarm us.
Privacy is not only sketch of the life of an artist couple, but also indirect questioning of the audience. A test of our voyeurism.
Privacy can still be seen at the Holland Festival until Sunday 12 June at the Compagnietheater.
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