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Anton Chekhov

'Actually, the romantic relic Platonov has been snowed in for about a hundred years. And now he comes back, and he walked into the wrong room'

Platonov, Theater Utrecht's latest show, premiered on 2 March and is an instant hit: rave reviews in all major newspapers. Artistic director and director Thibaud Delpeut bases his version of this archetypal Chekhov play on the translation made by actor Jacob Derwig in 2000 for 't Barre Land. This equally legendary play fitted... 

String theory inspires organ concert: Peter Eötvös conducts KCO in Multiverse

On Thursday 19 October, Peter Eötvös will conduct the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in the Dutch premiere of his organ concerto Multiversum, which he commissioned for the company. His brand new composition is flanked by works by György Ligeti and Claude Vivier. Transylvania's rich musical tradition Hungarian composer and conductor Peter Eötvös (Székelyudvarhely, 1944) grew up in Transylvania. Towards the end of... 

This is what devastation looks like: The Gabriels is the perfect mirror for stumpers like us. #HF17

Endless chatting at the kitchen table. While cooking. That's all they do, the brother, the sister, the ex, the two daughters-in-law and the mother of the Gabriel family. About recipes, about the old piano. About Thomas, the brother who died of parkinson's, about his wife, who due to informal care had no time to renew her doctor's degree. All very casually, without... 

Back, to The Cherry Garden 2 - ©Willem Popelier

Nottrot's Cherry Garden: fascinating evening of philosophy on Greek cottage

What is a memory worth? A first kiss, for example: how much poorer are you if it is forgotten? In hard euros. Such questions Greg Nottrot likes to ask his audience, and we, his grateful listeners, gladly join in his money thought experiments. The man who, with Oscar Kocken, came up with the revolutionary concept of the live talk show Order of the Day, now makes,... 

Photo: Viktor Vassiliev

Russian Cherry Garden in Amsterdam: 5 important things learned #HF15

There was an air of more expensive perfume in the foyers than at a Dutch gala premiere. The women were younger and smoother, or had a better botox doctor than usual. The jewellery looked very expensive, as did the dresses. Russian sounded everywhere. It seemed as if Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg had been moved for a while to PC Hooftstraat, a few hundred metres away.... 

Photo: Milena Abreu

Brazilian Chekhov adaptation is sensual and oppressive at the same time #HF15

Had Anton Chekhov lived now, he would have written for television. Not drama, and certainly not film. Indeed, innovative as the great Russian playwright was during his short life (1860-1904), he would now have done something with selfie sticks and contact microphones. The result would probably have been something like what Brazilian artist Christiane Jatahy has now created. She took the text... 

Advertising column Three Sisters

Chekhov's helpless, poetic creatures - three actresses on Three Sisters

Three Sisters by Chekhov directed by Theu Boermans is back with the Nationale Toneel. Two and a half years after its original performance, the play will play nine times exclusively at the Royal Theatre in The Hague. There is news about all three "sisters". Anniek Pheifer (Masja), Ariane Schluter (Olga) and Sallie Harmsen (Irina) talk about their careers and about Chekhov.... 

Two concentrated chickens and something with Chekhov at @hollandfestival

Holland Festival Holland Festival

Seagull, an early play by Anton Chekhov, is about drama in the same way that his equally famous play Cherry Garden is about cherry growing or real estate fraud. Not so. It seems to be a mistake that stage artists often make and that Chekhov cites in his 115-year-old play: thinking that everything is always about you. Which is why Thomas Ostermeier, lauded German director, cannot be blamed for the fact that his direction of The Seagull at Toneelgroep Amsterdam is about theatre.

Drama awards party in year of gloom

It had to be a party, because there has been enough shouting and complaining and it doesn't help anything anyway. After a year in which the theatre sector in particular felt the hard hand of Mark Ruttes happy crisis policy, awards had to be handed out again. So the already not-so-huge crème de la crème of the Dutch theatre world gathered again for the gala at Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg. It was a valiant attempt at optimism, while

5-hour marathon Roman Tragedies favourite with spectators Toneelgroep Amsterdam

We were somewhat mildly ironic about it, but hats off, meanwhile, to Toneelgroep Amsterdam's PR department and the audience, who responded remarkably well to the 'choose the reprise' campaign the company launched a few weeks back. We have the hard numbers we feared we would never see. And they are credible. We quote the press release: From 2 to... 

Top or flop: audience picks repertoire first theatre company in the Netherlands

We got another press release, and wondered: top or flop? How does idiosyncratic artistry rhyme with audience-determined repertoire choice? Andne: do all those people who chose the winning piece also get a free-or at least discounted-ticket to the performance of their choice? Andne: who checks the results, as there is no notary. Enne:. 

This Cherry Garden by theatre group Keesen&Co is even much better than it looks anyway

The good man himself lived to be barely 44. But on his deathbed, he thus wrote a play for which you have to be at least well over 50 and have experienced a lot if you want to do it justice as a director. So we are talking about Anton Chekhov and The Cherry Garden. And about Willlibrord Keesen, who in his now third... 

#HF11: They're going to make another big cut to the Russians at Toneelgroep Amsterdam

Cologne and Paris may not have been built in a day, but it took less than three days to fly to the moon. A warped comparison to say that a show that rattles three days before its premiere can turn out to be an unimaginable hit on the premiere itself. So something like that could happen with The Russians, the latest show 

#HF11: There is an old crippled servant haunting the Zuidas

Firs is his name. And he always arrives late. Because of the gout. Poor houseboy. Firs was created by Anton Chekhov. His masterpiece The Cherry Garden is about the boredom and lameness of the old rich, and Firs is the house servant who sees it all happening. Chekhov lets him die, at the end, when the departing house owners totally forget about him... 

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