'Holy F': nimble grappling with feminism is overpowering

The show Holy F opens with an audition. Two young women present themselves to a director - a man. They pronounce their phrases impeccably simultaneous, with the sweet tone men like to hear. Their confusion grows. Do they really understand what the director wants from them? Can they handle the role they aspire to? Playing a strong woman: isn't that difficult for them, the director wonders.

Then Eva Marie de Waal and Sophie van Winden (Waal and Wind) let go of their upturned poses and stand before the audience as themselves. What a breath of fresh air! What fun, relaxed women they suddenly are.

'Holy F' can begin. They are going to talk about feminism. And in particular, they talk about whether they themselves are feminists. And if so, what that means for them. How do they feel as women in a world that is still completely gripped by stereotypes? A world where women are still disadvantaged? A world where many women are anxiously trying their best to conform to the image society likes to maintain of them?

The dark forest

They fold open the entire history of feminism. Pioneers, movements, ideas, dissent: at great speed they pass by. Not as a documentary, but as acted scenes. They put themselves in the shoes of Aletta Jacobs, the Suffragettes, Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Joke Smit and other great champions. Through empathy, they enter the dark forest in which those women made their way. And they interpret the opposing voices: men, and also women who do not dare to free themselves from their cages.

Waal and Wind act lightly and humorously, but their drive shines through. They play other women, but what you simultaneously see from their acting is how they themselves struggle with the questions their existence as women raises in them. Like them, the many costumes (made by Miek Uittenhout) are witty and creative. They contribute sublimely to the distinct character of the show.

As the vehemence of their dialogues grows, at the side of the stage writer and philosopher Simone van Saarloos sits behind a desk with books and a laptop. She is the reflective resting point and source of apt lyrics. It is often difficult to divide your attention between the play of Waal and Wind and the texts Van Saarloos makes appear on a screen, but what she does make palpable is the longing for order, a stable ground, a clear thought about the road to final liberation.

But will that end point ever be reached?

Overwhelmed

There is a huge amount coming at the audience. A flood of ideas and emotions. I feel overwhelmed and confused by it. And that is a revealing experience. The performance makes me feel what it is like to seek footing in the maze of feminist thoughts and feelings, and that too in a world full of persistent, fallacious assumptions about women. What choice should you make? What authentically belongs to you?

All the thoughts expressed fascinate one by one and could drag me along as if they were the ultimate truth. Each time I think: I want to hold that thought! And the next thought too! And that quote, that name. Hold on to it! But for that it moves too fast and there is too much, and so the performance not only brings home to me how difficult it is for a woman to position herself in the world, but also the realisation dawns: let it go, all those ideas that seem to prescribe how to free yourself. Feminism is not clinging to a 'truth', but incessantly searching for yourself and what suits you. Feminism relates to everything in life.

Feminism close by

What does this do to me as a man? A lot. Feminism comes very close in this performance. 'We should all become feminists,' says Nigerian feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Even as a man, you can stand up for women's equality and react correctively when someone tramples on it. But in this performance, I feel challenged to go a step further: if a woman has to let go of ingrained, past-concepts in order to seek her own personal place in the world, why shouldn't the same apply to men? Aren't men also stuck in immovable ideas about how to present themselves in the world and towards women?

Feminism is: not walking a mapped-out path to a fixed defined future, but seeing what happens when you take a step that really comes from within yourself. Letting go of something can be confusing, but confusion makes creative. In this attitude, woman and man can seek kinship, no matter how different they are from each other in many ways.

'Holy F' concludes with a magnificent text by Simone van Saarloos, which would deserve to be listened to or read a lot. Not a text that reveals a truth, but one that throws open and inspires.