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It is occasionally quite chilly on the Westergasfabriek grounds where three Fringe performances are on show. On Thursday night, they are Levelless by Theatre Group WAK, Vivarium #3 by LORNA Collective and Kaat by Eva Knibbe, respectively. The cold, however, is no killjoy. The physical jokes in Levelless (or Recht not in Dutch) are a bit like...
An intimate living room conference among living works of art. That is the best way to describe 'House without a maid, a "conversation, performance and installation project" by Jorge León and Simone Aughterlony at Huis Sonneveld. In the former garage of the 1932 modernist villa, a select group of women gathered for two days to discuss the phenomenon of the maid. In other rooms of the imposing...
'So, Dr Lacan, are women more susceptible to madness? ... Is the man susceptible to hysteria?' In 'Deserve', part of Jorge León and Simone Aughterlony's triptych about the maid, the makers dig deep, very deep. They follow the intriguing line of the great debunkers in our history of thought: from Hegel's master-slave analysis through Marx and Freud to French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Core of...
Today (Friday 24 September 2010) at Amsterdam's De Balie debate centre, the kick-off of the art world's actions against the 21% cuts to the OC&W budget planned by the new CDA and VVD cabinet, tolerated by PVV. For those who have not yet found reports about it in the mainstream media: the social netwersite 'twitter'...
This year's debate season in Rotterdam opened in the renovated hall of De Unie. The newly completed space has a pleasant and intimate feel. All the more remarkable the statement by discussion leader Natasja van den Berg that questions from the floor are not allowed "because they are not about anything anyway". That doesn't exactly sound like a warm welcome in a debate centre. Admittedly, it did deliver...
Things happen in places like this that cannot bear the light of day. We are deep in Rotterdam's container port, among the neon-lit transhipment yards and dark warehouses. In one of those raw warehouses are two truck trailers. One is set up as an illegal sewing workshop, the other is filled with earth and rubber tyres. They form the backdrop for Hungarian theatre-maker Kornél Mundruczó's performance 'Hard to be a god'.
The show tells the fairly inimitable story of Karoly, who wants to make symbolic torture porn to blackmail his father with it. That father once raped his sister and is now an MEP. Three women are lured to this sewing studio under false pretences to participate in those videos. Things do not end well for them, partly because the foreign film director has rather sadistic tendencies, damaging the ladies to the point of rendering them useless.
The Fund for Cultural Participation has awarded grants to eight multi-year projects by professional arts organisations as part of the Best of Both Worlds programme. The total amount involved is €3,397,333. With the programme The best of two worlds, the Fund for Cultural Participation wants to give an impulse to the cooperation between professionals and amateurs in the field of culture. There are three...
At the Gala van het Nederlands Theater at the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg last night, the most important theatre awards were presented. Kees Hulst won the Louis d'Or for the most impressive male leading role, the role of Jörgen Hofmeester in' Tirza' at the Nationale Toneel. Maria Kraakman won the Theo d'Or for the most impressive female supporting role, Orlando in Toneelgroep Oostpool's production of the same name. The play 'Oog om Oog', with Linda van Dyck and Victor Löw, among others, won the AVRO Toneel Publieksprijs.
A red carpet, lots of champagne and more hugging. It is a warm reunion for theatre country, the Gala van het Nederlands Theater in Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg. An exciting reunion too, as the most important Dutch stage awards will be awarded tonight.
With over 12,000 visitors and an average occupancy rate of 70%, the organisers of the Amsterdam Fringe Festival say they have reason for pride. In a press release, they report that 'they managed to grow the number of visitors without losing the intimacy and experimental character of the Amsterdam Fringe Festival. ' How exactly we should see that....
American Davis Freeman's multimedia show 'Investment' is initially reminiscent of Al Gore's PowerPoint show 'An Unconvenient Truth'. Three performers and a projection computer show the audience a whole range of investment options in a very routine and detailed manner. Initially sensible and sustainable, but soon whole other motives come into play. Piquant detail: everyone from the...
Snow has fallen, a thick layer of fresh snow. Fake snow admittedly, but real enough to imagine yourself in the middle of Russia. There, in the city of Sverdlovsk, or Yekaterinburg, once lived the man about whom the show 'Poets and bandits' is about. Boris Ryzhy (1974-2001) turned the raw realities of his hometown into poems. He left more than a thousand poems to the world. His breakthrough came at the Poetry International festival in Rotterdam, in the year 2000. A year later, he was dead. Boris Ryzhy, 26, had hanged himself.
Theatre group De Warme Winkel makes that link with Rotterdam if only because 'Poëten en bandieten' is played there. An old factory hall serves as a backdrop for the run-down working-class neighbourhood in which Ryzhy grew up. From behind a work table, actress Mara van Vlijmen calls Rotterdam residents. None of them are at home. But on their answering machine is now one of Ryzhy's poems, which must be a wondrous experience for the listeners. The Warm Shop does not show how the professor's son Boris ended up in that poor neighbourhood. Whereas he himself talks about an environment full of drab flats in his poems, the stage setting is more reminiscent of the outdoors, with all that vast snow. The atmosphere is cosy and warm. On a float decorated with candles, a folk ensemble comes on, singing Russian songs. Old-fashioned songs, and nothing pop or punk.
The Dodo International Choice journal, episode 3: Hans van Dam saw 'Investment' and spoke with creator Davis Freeman, about what you can do with a tonne. It evokes associations with the famous TED talks and is reminiscent of the powerpoint documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth', with which Al Gore tried to wake up the world about climate change. What Davis Freeman does is smaller, but...
'He fears that the real thing may have come along a hundred times, but he missed it.'
'Exactly. And how old are you?'
'Twenty.'
'Well...'
In suits, wearing animal masks, five actors pose on stage. They represent a bear, rabbit, deer, rooster and monkey. From this 'freeze', they start making animal noises and moving around. A rhythmic performance follows. Fascinated, but confused, the audience watches the alienating dance. What do these animals have to do with the war in Iraq anyway? Just when you start to wonder if you are in the right audience, the actors take off their masks and answer: 'Have you ever wondered what the war in Iraq has meant to the animals there? We never hear anything about them in newspapers or on TV.'
A new day, so new chances to find the Fringe's greatest gem. Today, I am taken from Theatre Bellevue into a nearby alley. Suddenly I see her lying there. A junk, like there are more walking around in Amsterdam. Preferably, I quickly walk around it. Afraid of smelling them or being accosted. Metro, a piece of...
Such a cool late summer evening as Thursday 9 September 2010 is a perfect night for the try- out of actor group Wunderbaum's location play 'Natives'. Clear sky, mildly rising autumn chill and virtually windless. Location: a swampy lawn between two abandoned housing blocks in Rotterdam's Pendrecht district. Once built from post-war ideals of family happiness, convenience and accessibility, but soon too cramped, ageing and...
In my search for the gem of the Fringe, I stumbled across two musicals at the Rose Theatre on Wednesday night. At the Fringe Festival, anything goes, yet I was surprised by Christiane by F*K Theatre. In this musical, young people sink to the bottom of society. They drink and blow. Everyone lives in their own little world. Main character Christiane falls in love with an addicted boy and thus also comes into contact with the dark sides of the drug scene. You expect to see the raw sides of this dark world in a story like this, but from the first song Christiane far too well behaved. It reminds me of a feel good-school musical. Eight neat boys and girls sing about 'a trip with friends around you'. They do this so sweetly and in harmonious harmony singing that what you hear and see is totally inconsistent with the story.
Tomorrow begins The International Choice of The Rotterdam Theatre. A festival that for years has presented remarkable theatre from all over the world at the Maasstad's theatre in September. Except this year, that is, because the 'chest of quist' is being rebuilt and that will take some time. Not something with Amsterdam metro builders, but whether the official reopening on 2 October 2010 will be...
Wuthering Heights is often mentioned in the same breath as other nineteenth-century classics such as Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice, but Emily Brontë's book is infinitely darker than those other coquettish girl books. Heathcliff and Cathy's big, dramatic passion actually connects surprisingly well with emos who are Twilight, True Blood and devour other contemporary vampire stories.
Adaptor Jeroen Olyslaegers and director Floor Huygen were well aware of this when they adapted the novel for the stage into Fierce heights, restless souls, a co-production of Dutch youth theatre company Artemis and Flemish Antigone. The show garnered high praise, can now be seen in TF, but was also nominated for two Gouden Krekels, the awards for youth theatre.
Sanja Mitrovic has won the BNG New Theatermakers Prize 2010. She receives the prize of 45,000 euros for her performance 'Will You Ever Be Happy Again'? In which she took care of both directing and acting. She can spend the prize money on a new performance next season.
Nik van den Berg is undoubtedly someone to keep an eye on. In theatre Bellevue, he gives a parody of a rock star in a bizarre act. 'Is this it,' I think for a moment, but it soon becomes clear how cleverly Van den Berg shapes this stage beast in a fur coat. In an unintelligible language, he plays a number of songs, meticulously portraying the mannerisms and gestures of a great rock artist.
Slowly he takes a sip of tea, takes another drag of his cigarette, drops the ash into his tea and then, in utmost concentration, throws the entire cigarette into the tea. A soundtrack starts, then Nik starts the concert with his electric guitar. The songs in NIK©#2 be about life, its problems and difficulties. But it could just as easily be about making a cheese sandwich. Van den Berg's timing is peerless, as is his empathy. This certainly worked on my chuckles, though there will be those who expected more from it.
'Butt-fucking at extra cost.' 'Do they also do blow jobs without a condom?' 'That one sucked my cock once and then she was nauseated all night. In the morning she puked in my bed.' Continuously, they do suggestive dances and constantly look into the room, with fixed smiles that are somewhere between amused and sneaky. The six actors of About Animals are challenging and relentless. Susanne Kennedy's direction of Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek's play is unprecedentedly bleak and arrives as a punch in the gut.
Jelinek's wrote a text about prostitutes and their clients, partly based on eavesdropping tapes from an Austrian escort agency, in which the men talk about women as if they were animals, or more precisely, like farmers talk about their cattle. In her direction, Kennedy places great emphasis on the viewer's gaze. 'The woman is being watched and is always an object, the man is watching and is the subject. Looking is not innocent,' She said in an interview. The three men, in foul light blue show suits, talk over the women; the women, in dresses on which little subtle emphasis is placed on their nipples and crotch, obligingly talk after them. They look at us defiantly, making us complicit in the humiliating situation.
There is no notion of time when you take your seat. It is dark. The room looks like a café, with four tables and chairs around them. Don't expect a sit-back performance, as everyone is part of the play. The intriguing Iris Brunette doesn't let you be a spectator, but gives you a role. Do not fear that you will suddenly have to take the stage. From your seat, you are influencing the play. Actress Melanie Wilson lets you choose which way to go. Do we wait here or walk on? Do we go left or right? Do we trust this person or not? The space you're in feels safe. Fortunately. Because there is no exit; walking away is impossible. A maximum of twenty spectators witness this story that takes you through time. Wilson narrates and involves you in the story in the best possible way. A more intimate performance is hardly possible, I think.
Just when it was announced that musical production house M-Lab is in financial distress, a helping hand comes from Dutch theatre critics. Indeed, the annual Prize of Criticism goes to the laboratory that produces musicals that almost always matter. We quote the jury report:A laboratory is not only for somewhat unworldly scientists who are fiddling on the square millimetre...
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