Why I am suddenly hugely in favour of live music in any theatre performance.

I went to Rotterdam Zuid to see Shakespeare. The play was called Cleopatra and someone had tried to turn it into a feminist manifesto. That is something like making a rhinoceros jump through a hoop: the British bard relates to feminism like Thierry Baudet to Greta Thunberg. So it had failed, and the reviewer of the most highly educated newspaper in the Netherlands was grateful for that. Two stars. Anyway. So NRC didn't like it. Would I see it differently?

It seemed a fine test case to all concerned, so I went to Rotterdam Zuid to sit among the non-premiere audience in the almost demolished and renovated Theater Zuidplein and experience what that was like. Except for Henri Drost of De Theaterkrant, reviewers never sit among the regular theatre audience, so it was quite fun to sit in Rotterdam Zuid among about 300 students from Atheneum 3 of the Melanchton in Bergschenhoek (Rotterdam North and decent). They put down their nintendo and enjoyed themselves, I can't say otherwise. As did the 50 or so extraordinarily regular diverse audience members who did come from Rotterdam South. Zuidplein remains a unique theatre, experience that, people.

Power women.

As a reviewer, did that force me into a humble position? Of course it did. This performance, a co-production of Dance Theatre Aya and Theatre Group Zep, is not meant for the canalside. It is meant for vmbo schoolchildren who have never been to a theatre and who have never heard of Shakespeare at all.

So is it bad that Brainpower has sort of translated the lyrics into rather monotonous verse? No. Is it bad that this piece doesn't really fit along the feminist yardstick of Holland's better press? Neither. When people shout on stage that they are power women, even if they are not helped by the plot, that's enough.

Five stars.

Would I give the performance five stars just to annoy the NRC? Certainly not. I discovered something else.

This performance, with all its fierce dancing, its loudness, the soundtrack full of quotes from hard rock and power rap, is made to nail a totally uninitiated audience to the seat, and it succeeds quite nicely. May well be that in that venue ( especially with Bergschenhoekers) one or two kids pick up the energy. Possibly a spark will strike somewhere, in the Bijlmer or Alkmaar or Breukelen, and then Sodom and Gomorrah will be saved. Enough reason to keep supporting such crude attempts.

Could it be better? Sure, but another insight crept up on me: why not ban the use of non-live music in theatre? Because that was the only thing that really bothered me, and the only thing that would have made this performance a truly indispensable event. Mind you, there is a very deserving musician on stage. We just see and hear her too little. Her live contributions are snowed under in the soundtrack set up as a wall of sound, offering no nuance, and no humanity. How I would have liked to have seen a live band, alongside those dancers, alongside those actors.

Rammstein.

Why don't we have live music at these kinds of performances? Precisely because they need to communicate with an audience that is more into music than dance or theatre? It's obviously too expensive, especially in fair practice times, but how I would have loved it if that Rammstein quote towards the end hadn't sounded off a disc, but performed by live musicians.

Orkater does it, using a lot of interns and a lot of art and craft. They get a bit of money for that. And it works. Now if Zep and Aya organised that too, how beautiful it wouldn't be!

Musical.

I know, you no longer talk about theatre, or dance theatre, but musical theatre, or even musical. Even among the Atheneum pupils in Theater Zuidplein, I realised that we of the arts are too little aware that there are more and more people who have no idea what we of the arts are doing. Who really have never heard of Shakespeare at all, but who want to experience exciting theatre, intense music and solid dance.

I have argued for years that 'we' should not 'get down on our knees' for this audience, that we should cherish the highest art and let Moses come to the mountain. Since this evening, I look at it differently.

Pimple.

We, the lovers of the clean, the pure and the ultimate vulnerable are an almost negligible minority, a pimple to be swept away on the nose of the Netherlands. Please let a few people like Peter Pluymaekers continue to explore and mine the swampy lands where no moat has yet been dug. Give them money to complete the show. Hire - literally - The State. Sow the seed, reach out that hand, get on their knees.

Not all at once. In the end, we should all strive for the highest, whatever that may be. For some that is Shakespeare, for others Jibbe Willems or Elfriede Jelinek. But let us not step on the fingers of those who, on our rope ladder, below us, are trying to climb up.