The plofnies came totally unexpectedly. The family father behind me, out with wife and presumably reluctant adolescent son, burst out after about 10 minutes into the performance. Just when a deafening silence had descended over the sold-out Theatre Carré. At least four people, including myself, were shocked to the core. A sneeze had never been this loud before, but I had never experienced it as quiet as during that silence in Alain Platel's "Nicht Schlafen!" either. And I am in the theatre quite often.
The evening had begun so sweetly. The summer bike ride along the Amstel and the crowded parks and terraces on the Weesperzijde was only briefly robbed of its idyll when a car made a slightly too reckless move. Just that flash of London through you, then a waving hand and "sorry!" and life goes on. Still, we are more vigilant than usual. Nicht Schlafen, the piece with which Platel, the Flemish wonderboy of dance, is at the Holland Festival this time, plays on that.
Slaughterhouse
And how. On a stage dominated at rest by a slaughterhouse sculpture of horse carcasses, Platel sets his dancers as museum visitors. Silent and quiet at first, but then. A minute after the hall lights go out, that hushed little group has turned into a fighting mob. They do not spare each other, though no blood flows. The effect of senseless violence is well hunted as the dancers tear each other's clothes off. The looks of the nine dancers, eight men and one woman, are bitter, aggressive. And then there is this silence.
An opening like that, with flakes of testosterone flying through the hall like a few pieces of clothing, makes all of Carré at once awake and alert. 'On edge', the English say, and then every sound is a sound too much. In that state, it's actually a wonder we didn't all lynch the lone sneezer.
Death Drive
Woven throughout the performance is a thread of death drive, but so beautifully imagined that it keeps you watching and also keeps you awake. The composition of the group also contributes to this. All colours of the rainbow are represented, the Israeli sometimes wearing a beret and the Arab a white cap on his head. Platel plays emphatically with our own distrust.
This charged group dances to the fiercest tones of Gustav Mahler's heaviest works, played with the volume knob at ten for the occasion. This interspersed with soundscapes of nature sounds creates an atmosphere that is almost too much. Platel is already not the subtlest in his choreography, and with Mahler at war strength, the wood from which planks are cut here may be a little too thick.
Gym strippers
But I emphatically mention here that the importance makes up for that potential overkill. More than in Dries Verhoeven's half-hearted haunted house elsewhere at this Holland Festival, Nicht Schlafen makes you aware of the appeal of violence, and the beauty of pure aggression. There are no weak gym strippers on stage here, as on Mercatorplein, but beautiful, athletic bodies. Bodies that live on this kind of energy. Bodies that can therefore also be very threatening, even if at the end relativity and humour are allowed and seriousness gives way to relaxation.
The applause was stormy. In front of the doors of Carré, an enraged cyclist struggled through the mass of theatre-goers still somewhat stunned in the evening light, in the middle of the street.
Sleeper
On the train home, I sit opposite a tall old gentleman in a three-piece suit. He is in a deep sleep. At my station, I did not wake him up to check whether he might also need to be here. My mind was too much elsewhere. With this, stately sir, should you have arrived in Maastricht yesterday on the last train against your will when you were supposed to be in Utrecht: I could have saved you by gently saying 'don't sleep' to you. But Platel was in the way.
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