'I was harassed twice on my way to school last year.' The young actress, barely 15, says it with considerable anger in her voice. It is the morning after the Berlin premiere of the Chilean play Paisajes para no colorear, in which she plays along, with eight peers. That anger was also there the previous evening, during the performance, which can be seen at the Holland Festival on 14 and 15 June. As a young woman, as a child even, you have a very hard time in Chile, where machismo goes hand in hand with the oppression of women.
Marco Layera, the theatre-maker who previously visited the Holland Festival, came up with the idea for the performance after Chile was rocked by the rape and murder of two young women about six years ago. It was mainly the almost lethargic reaction to it that triggered a lot in him. He set to work with a team to collect girls' stories. more than 140 stories they drew up, after which they started recruiting actresses from youth theatre schools in the capital.
Meaningful
Layera: 'That murder was a signal to give young women a voice, and let them tell how they deal with this history. So once we had the acting group together, we continued collecting stories. The girls themselves also contributed their stories.'
'It was much more meaningful than I expected,' says one of the actresses afterwards. 'I thought it would just be theatre, but it turned out to be something that taught me a lot about life.'
Texts they co-wrote themselves, sometimes based on their own experiences. Without making it too personal, another explains: 'We made the monologues based on what material was there. With that, we started improvising. For example, a scene about a father who is not there for his children. That one is not based on a single father, but composed of lots of stories from lots of girls.'
Tears with tears
Paisajes is a rather intense performance. It starts off quite open, but gradually gets heavier. The scene in which a girl talks about how badly she is bullied led to many tears in the audience. According to Marco Layera, it was a 'cathartic' moment: 'Until now, people have not reacted as emotionally as they did now. It was hugely intense. The girls delivered it beautifully. I didn't keep it dry myself, sitting among the audience. That is something I will take with me from now on.'
The girls also experienced it as intense: 'It made me very happy,' says one of them. 'I feel a lot of empathy with the audience then, because I understand that they recognise what we also went through.'
Suicide
A remarkable role is played by a blow-up doll. She is treated as one of the nine actresses during the performance. Until she puts an end to it. Quite a violent image, and certainly not suitable for tender souls.
'We were looking for a way to talk about suicide too,' explains the dramaturge the next day, 'and the best way was to do it through that doll.' ' While we were rehearsing, news came in that a girl took her own life in a Starbucks because she was being bullied,' tells Marco Layera. 'We had to incorporate that into the play. This was a creative way to make that discussable: an inflatable doll that slowly deflates and disappears.'
Were they not afraid to bring something like that into the theatre?
'That doll is one of ours,' says one of the girls. 'She also has a name, Sofia. She is weak, an outsider and that is how we feel. Suicide is a choice we do not aspire to ourselves, we prefer to go out on the streets.'
Macho culture
Layera: 'We have a lot of heavy and intense themes in the play, but we can't escape the fact that this is also just reality. You can't ignore it. Just like sexual violence. One of our actresses was also assaulted on the underground while on her way to rehearsal. Another girl was harassed by a pencil pusher. It is the reality you have to deal with as a young woman in this country. Indeed, it is everywhere. When one of our staff went to buy the inflatable doll Sofia, she was assaulted. That was almost a rape.'
So macho culture is quite an issue. With you, it's quite intense. How do the girls see their future? 'Things are changing. The younger generation is super committed to changing it.' Says one of the girls. Another: 'I'm glad I've finally been able to tell what my mother, my grandmother and her mother all couldn't tell me.'
Young girls are not safe in the Netherlands either
Is it so much worse in Chile than here? I asked Jacqueline Kleijer. She is an expert on 'dependency relationships' which includes the (online) loverboy problem. Part of the week she is a therapeutic counsellor for girls aged 12 to 23 at Pretty Woman in Utrecht.
'Cross-border things happen here too'. I hear a lot in my work as a counsellor. Even during information sessions in schools, girls talk about what happens to them. Girls suffer sexual harassment even at school. Sometimes also from boys in class. Many boys don't realise this themselves. Therein lies a point, that boys do not handle a 'no' well, and do not accept it well. Girls, in turn, often find it more difficult to say 'no'. So those two things are side by side.'
The actresses in the show call for resistance. How do you see that?
'So what bothers me is that girls are always expected to become more resilient, while I think, 'What? Those boys have to do something too!' Basically, the behaviour of boys and girls has to do with insecurity. Girls want to be liked. As a girl, you then don't say anything about the transgressive behaviour you don't like because then you come across as bitchy. With boys, if you are rejected by a girl, you might not be tough enough, and if you are rejected by a girl, the rest of you won't think you are tough either. What you then very often see happen is that boys start to over-shout themselves and that is precisely when boundary crossing takes place.'
Do you see future as hopeful as the makers of Paisajes?
'I hope it will get better, at the same time I also see reverse things happening. Care used to be very well built into society. Now there are many waiting lists, clashes between cultures, many cuts in prevntion, polarisation, also in youth care. Everything is connected. I see that connection very much. Performances like this are therefore enormously important. Especially for young people, Stories are the pivot of prevention, education and awareness. Through this, we communicate with each other and that really needs to happen much more. '
Good to know
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français 
