'Desire' is highlight of telling opening weekend of Theatre Festival Boulevard

"You can't say anything anymore either" is the title of a show by theatre friends George and Eran from Amsterdam-West. They have previously presented sensitive themes in a theatre form close to stand-up comedy, and so this programme is about the language battle. A language battle about which words are still appropriate, which stereotypes are still 'allowed' and how the audience deals with them. 

It is a theme at Boulevard, the Bossche summer festival with international allure that has always been at the forefront of social trends. For instance, they were so early on about waste separation and green energy that the Council for Culture working group investigating how sustainable the cultural sector could become forgot to mention the festival. 

Much more than a tick on 'diversity'

This year, the first year in which the new directors (Tessa Smeulers and Dana Kibbelaar) are able to put their stamp on the festival, diversity and inclusion is no longer the empty tick in the grant application, as is common in the sector, but something woven into the fibre of organisation and programme.

For instance, next to the tent at St John's, there is a placard that may seem patronising to some, but which - on reflection - I find perfectly appropriate. Unfortunately, it is very literally translated from English, though, and that causes confusion. Suggestions for a better translation are welcome.

Spinning bicycle wheels with beads

The new age, in which listening and asking is more important than posing and pontificating, does not come all by itself. For instance, at Karlijn Hamer's installation, 'Syriana, My Friend', I learnt the word 'neurodiversity'. Psychological 'disorders' can no longer be clearly defined, but are - like our sexual orientation, for that matter - on a sliding scale, highly dependent on environment, time and biology. 

Hammer spent some time hanging out with a friend who was diagnosed with autism late in life. She now lets us sympathise - or not - with what it is like to have autism. Where one person falls asleep from spinning bicycle wheels with beads, another only sees constantly clashing details and gets a headache. Or worse. There appeared, during the follow-up discussion, to be more of a need for less stimuli, in a world where you are asked for attention every second.

Prickly was certainly the concert by Shakuar, the festival's opening act. Beautifully atmospheric music, perfectly performed apart from a squeaky guitar. The melodies ranged from African to Gregorian, and for the latter they got help from the bells of St John's this time. Sacred, but the two singers were not too engaged with the audience, and that created distance. 

Vulnerable and tough at the same time

There is absolutely no distance between the four men in Louis Janssens' play Desire. It is a wonderful highlight of the upcoming season. I Interviewed Janssens this week, without having seen the play. The performance exceeded my expectations. From a simple fact, which is that the four men with bare upper bodies utter sentences that all start with phrases like "I want" or "I long for", you are carried along past desire, fear, eroticism and horror, with a beautiful musical setting. It is vulnerable and tough at the same time, and the charge is universal. A new sound from a new generation we are going to hear a lot from. 

'Choir Practice'

And then there was Pride in Amsterdam, which Den Bosch supported via a special party night. Titled 'Pull something nice out', the programme offered, among other things, a pole-dancing act by a tree-length muscleman in drag, a ballet dancer in glitter and sharp lesbian stand-up comedy. Fun, and it reminded me of 'Choir Practice' in the virtuoso, and unmissable HBO comedy series 'Somebody, Somewhere‘.

In that series, set in the usually not known as gay-friendly Midwestern US, any form of gay hostility, police brutality and church hatred is so visibly missing that the horrific reality comes in precisely because of it. The evening in Den Bosch also lacked the harsh reality, and according to some attendees, that was a miss. After all, Pride is a protest movement, not a night of campy partying at a time when lesbian mothers are being removed from Italian marital status and in the Netherlands, populists are winning votes with homophobia. 

Time for audience participation. In "You can't say anything more either", George and Eran asked the audience to vote out words. Frighteningly few fingers went up at "nxxxr kisses", "jxxxnkoeken", or "mxxrkoppen". 

Those hints from the festival are desperately needed.