First there was Arthur Schnitzler's book. Then Stanley Kubrick's film. And now the play. From 27 August, Toneelgroep Maastricht plays Eyes wide shut. After his wife confesses her sexual fantasies, a man searches feverishly for his own deepest hidden desires against the backdrop of carnival celebrations.
"I always wanted to make psychologised drama," says Servé Hermans, artistic director of Toneelgroep Maastricht. "Our stage version of Eyes wide shut is like a modern-day Odyssey. Everything that happens takes place only in the mind of the protagonist, the deadly boring family doctor Albert Hofman (Beau Schneider). The man gets totally upset when his wife Florentine (Joke Emmers) confesses her wild fantasies to him out of the blue. In a confused state, Albert wanders through the dark night city. A beautiful metaphor for the search for himself. Because for the first time, this bourgeois man encounters everything he has hitherto feared: whores, gays, foreigners, violence... and his own bestial instincts and desires. All kinds of fears that you see reflected in our society today."
Pornographic society
What also fascinates Hermans about Eyes wide shut is that in our pornographic society, it sometimes seems as if sex is only reserved for supermodels and is not mainly experienced by ordinary people. Lead actress Joke Emmers is not the perfect likeness of classic beauty Nicole Kidman (lead actress in Kubrick's film). "I am rather the opposite," Emmers says with a laugh. "I'm more known as that chubby girl in a way too tight skirt. That's why I think it's really cool that director Servé Hermans chose me of all people for this play. Theatre is about talent and imagination, not obvious characters with a perfect size. By choosing me, Hermans also shows: those desires are in everyone, including people like you and me."
To write the play, playwright Jibbe Willems used both the book Dream novella By Arthur Schnitzler as the film Eyes wide shut By Stanley Kubrick[/hints] script: Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael[/hints] used as both inspiration and source. Yet the adaptation of both sources in language and action is so idiosyncratic that Toneelgroep Maastricht insists it is an original work. Credit is due to the originals, though, especially to Dream novella.
Hermans: "Theatre is a very different medium from film. In this performance, music comes emphatically to the fore. I can colour a mental atmosphere so well with music. One snap of the fingers and bam, you're immediately in the right emotion. In Eyes wide shut is mostly classical music by Bach, Mozart and Liszt. A few Limburg carnival hits lend themselves well to soften hard, raw scenes. And all the actors sing, even together, which makes for beautiful group images."
Finally, the title. "For me Eyes wide shut symbol for the main character," Hermans said. "He lives with blinders on. Despite having his eyes open, he sees nothing."
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