Organised after-talk at a theatre performance, you have to feel like it. Then it helps if the performance beforehand has made sense of it. Which goes above and beyond for 'Cloth for Bleeding', the latest work by Het NUT and George Tobal. Of course, it also helps that you have to go to that after-show before you get your dessert. Because Het NUT Wouldn't be Het NUT if their performance wasn't accompanied by exquisite food and drink.
But it was not because the hundred and fifty of us were blackmailed with a quite divine meal, which had us eagerly awaiting dessert, that we went en masse to that after-party. It was mostly because we were curious and because we all felt quite in need of a little afterthought. Because Cloth for Bleeding is about something.
Poverty trap
Greg Nottrot and George Tobal have plunged into the poverty trap and debt problem with Cloth for Bleeding. That system by which people like you and me can suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of society just like that. Because of a wrong surname, or an incorrectly completed application for childcare benefit, for example. That side where 'together' no longer exists and life goes on without a significant roof over your head.
The text written by Tobal is about Nottrot meeting a homeless William, looking at him 'just too long'. He feels responsible, wants to help with more than the two euros he throws at him. He goes to put on a show, and so that show is reenacted, because Willem is not there (anymore).
Always conditions
Why we were all so eager to talk about it is because of the issue the piece raises. Not only does Doekje voor het Bloeden signal a kind of pity industry in which aid seems more designed to relieve society of a sense of guilt than actually doing anything about the situation of the dropouts in question, it also shows that we deal with giving and receiving in a very strange way.
For instance, no one wants to get something with all kinds of conditions attached, but we do think that the euro we give to that homeless beggar at the Jumbo should not be spent on beer or drugs. So some buy the beggar a sandwich. Preferably a healthy sandwich. And we would prefer to stand by until the beggar in question has eaten it all.
Such patronisation can miss someone on the brink as much as the well-meaning samaritan. But what then?
Watch
So that's what after-talk was so useful for, because there was an expert by experience (Wesley) there. Wesley had now been off the booze for five years, and through the Intermediate facility could also move into a home, where he now led a good life away from the 'friends' of yore, with whom he got drunk together every day.
It preceded that dessert by talking about what could we all do to help those at the bottom of our society? Giving money is always good, said the lady from the Intermediate Provision, but Wesley thought it was even more important that you saw him. Just look at him, greet him, see him. Because invisibility, non-existence and being treated like old rubbish is the worst thing we can do to each other. And so that starts with your neighbours, and that stranger on the street.
It is possible that after this performance, 150 more people will warily say "good afternoon!" to that passer-by, walking his dog, when walking at lunch with their colleagues. Sometimes saving the world can be quite simple.
