When you make theatre for children and young people, you tell stories as an adult to children and young people from your adult existence. You can do that. You can get funding for that. Artemis, previously here proclaimed to the second-best theatre company in the Netherlands, is one such company. But, because this youth theatre company is led by Jetse Batelaan, Artemis likes to do things differently. Indeed, they have thought: what if we turn the whole thing around? That we take the experiences of young people and their view of the world as our starting point. So there is now a performance in the repertoire that is intended for adults from the point of view of young people.
The result is a performance without a title. Or rather with a title, but one that, as befits a 15-year-old, they shrug off. Because a 15-year-old's world is complicated enough as it is. We see this depicted by three adult actors, who recite texts written by 15-year-old schoolchildren.
Beckett
So, as an adult, you suddenly rediscover how terribly complicated the world is when you are 15. After all, reality changes every 15 minutes then and you are the only one who sees it. This applies to all three characters, and how this is made palpable is at the heart of this play, which picks up where Samuel Beckett left off.
So the performance is brilliant. I can be brief about that. How Batelaan once again manages to turn the entire theatre, including the audience's expectations, upside down with simple means and three actors is inimitable. Just as we were previously introduced to the hair-breadth depths of the dance party in Party Dialogues, we now return for five quarters of an hour to the hell of the adolescent brain. Something from which there is no escape. Except by waiting. Until it's over.
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