Circus forms perfect backdrop for Kees Prins' tragicomic 'Trapeze'

Stop or keep going until you drop dead? And can you build on the other? Serious life questions that the occasional duo Peter Blok and Bas Hoeflaak will answer from a trapeze on the ridge of their circus, joking and joking.

The dry humour and mugshots of Peter Blok (experienced stage, film and TV actor) and from actor-cabaret artist Bas Hoeflaak (Snipers) are ideal for tragicomic roles. Just as Kees Prins fits that bill as lyricist - together with Roel Bloemen - and director of Trapeze.

Henri (Blok) and Bert (Hoeflaak) wait together on a plank in the ridge of the circus for their trapeze act to begin. This is constantly postponed, by 'the girl from the planning' reporting via Bert's mobile phone. Which, apart from the planning, is also repeatedly ringing loudly by Els, Bert's nervous girlfriend.

Witty

Two jammers that alternately present the acrobats with crucial, hilarious and trivial choices: dark or light laminate? Deaf or blind for the rest of your life? Take your dreary existence for granted or leave it? To have a safety net or not?

The digression about, and wavering between, the choices raised and presented is witty. Beneath this comedy unfolds the tragedy: what on earth are you doing with your life? Who can you trust? And when you are utterly at each other's mercy, do you remain loyal to the bitter end?

The circus provides the perfect tragicomic backdrop: Bert and Henri comment on the skills of colleagues down in the arena. The already meagre circus troupe is thinned out at the entrance of a new sponsor: Lidl. That one gets the tent filled daily with discounts on tickets when selling sanitary pads and cauliflower.

Generous smile

So their comments are not mild, with the high/low point being the clown who can't and won't take it anymore. Bert and Henri receive word, also by phone, that he has put an end to it at the nearby railway track. A generous laugh echoed here a there through the Leidsche Schouwburg during the premiere Thursday. Ouch...

That outlines exactly one flaw of this performance. There is a need to keep laughing. The humour dominates the tragedy. Prins and Bloemen have not dared to drop silences here and there instead of evoking the next laugh. Example: Els' communication to Bert, the turning point in the story: Bert shouts back the same text ' No way' ten times through the phone.

This is offset by great staging of the men's soulful poses on the plank in the air, in suits that accentuate the deterioration (bellies). You forget most of the jokes in the days after this extraordinary performance. What endures forever is the beautiful image of those two helpless performers of age struggling with their choices on a plank but ultimately doomed to jump without a safety net. Or are they?

Still the post-corona joy and wonder reign supreme that we get to go back to the theatre where all these people work hard to give us a great night. Trapeze spent a few days at DeLaMar in 2021, after which it was decided to make a tour of it with a modified version. Korthals Ensign will bring the show to some 40 theatres in the Netherlands in October 2022 and April, May and June 2023.