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Headstrong choices in large companies
As a result, makers in the large theatres and with large-scale companies, such as Toneelgroep Amsterdam, het Noord Nederlands Toneel and het RO Theater, now also regularly opt for a defiant approach to their material. In his productions, director Ivo van Hove from Toneelgroep Amsterdam dissects major social institutions like marriage and politics. He took a long, hard look at politics in Romeinse Tragedies/Roman Tragedies ( 2007), which featured a consecutive rundown of nearly all Shakespeare’s Roman tragedies in one stage show. The form Van Hove chooses for his explorations is often memorable, largely thanks to the monumental efforts of his permanent scenery designer Jan Versweijveld. In the case of Romeinse Tragedie/Roman Tragedies s, the stage was transformed into a political lobby room, complete with seating areas, televisions and even a buffet and bar. The audience sat in a triangle between the politician/actors and unlike in most Dutch theatres, they were able to swap seats or step out to get a sandwich.
Where Ivo van Hove often opts for an unusual style to tackle more traditional subjects but retains the original scripts, the Noord Nederlands Toneel in particular is not afraid to take a lighter and more unorthodox approach to the major classics. Artistic director Koos Terpstra is convinced that a theatre-maker should leave no stone unturned in his wish to involve the audience in the theme of the performance. And if this means drastically revamping a classic script, then so be it. Over the last few years, this has led to a few interesting experiments that turned out to hold wide appeal. For example, Terpstra added stand-up comedians to his productions of Brecht and Beckett plays, and MacBeth (2006) was adapted into a giant puppet show in which the actors played puppets in true style. It wasn’t blood that flowed during the performances, but sawdust. This light-hearted and slightly critical approach to classic scripts is one of the NNT’s strong points. The company is not only popular among adults (although many traditional theatre-goers had difficulty with the MacBeth puppet show); large numbers of young people are also regular visitors to their shows.
Artistic director of the RO Theater Alize Zandwijk is also fond of tearing up traditional scripts. But having said this, she is certainly not afraid to present large theatre audiences in major theatres with completely new stage scripts. A good example was Onschuld/Innocence ( 2007) by the German playwright Dea Loher, which is about ordinary people trying to survive in a hard world. Zandwijk gave Loher’s characters slightly clownish traits. This softened the hard script, while the clumsiness of the characters served to magnify the tragedy of their situation. In Macbeth (2007) too, Zandwijk sought refuge in trivia and buffoonery. This time by presenting an insane circus of megalomania, in which an old man and an innocent child kind met with disaster. Zandwijk’s wayward choices in terms of acting style and stage design, which are regularly based on popular culture, circus and the grotesque, interestingly create different levels in the scripts she uses on stage. The other RO Theater director, Pieter Kramer, also relies on popular culture. For example, for the festive season he produced the hilarious Lang en Gelukkig/Happily Ever After (2007), grafted from English pantomime and packed with references to fairy-tales, Paris Hilton and hit musicals, and a performance on an ice rink: Daklozen on ice/Homeless on ice (2008).
Smaller theatre-makers: in touch with their inner self
The wilfulness of Dutch theatre-makers mainly manifests itself in their drive to use everything they can get their hands on. It doesn’t matter whether this is popular culture, film or music, as long as it can be used to fathom the depths of social relevance. This is not only the forte of large venues, but also of the smaller Dutch theatres, where theatre-makers are often far more outspoken in their choice of new vehicles for making their point. While large companies still base many of their productions on the classic body of theatre works, makers in the smaller theatres are often more in touch with their inner self. By writing their own scripts, basing their productions on research and improvisation, or by using music as the basic premise for the show.
Some of this theatre is quite candidly political, such as pieces by Eric de Vroedt, who uses his mightysociety series to explore phenomena on the interface of politics, society and identity. In mightysociety2 and 3 (2005), De Vroedt looked at the motives for and the implications of suicide terrorism. mightysociety5 (2008) was a theatrical installation about young people exploring their identity and society (virtual or otherwise). The installation comprised a number of youngsters’ rooms, where visitors were able to walk in and out, getting to know the miscellaneous residents. The young theatre company Wunderbaum also explores modern society. Their themes have included the background to violence (De rollende roadshow/The Rolling Road Show (2005), fear of asylum-seekers (Welcome to my Backyard, 2004) and the consumer society (Magna Plaza, 2007). The company usually finds an unusual location to maximize the effect, such as a shopping mall in the case of Magna Plaza, whereby the audience were seated on stools amongst the shoppers. The young director Laura van Dolron invented the term ‘stand-up philosophy’ for her productions. She often plays herself in her productions, using the tools of the stand-up comedian to light-heartedly address the confrontation between her own thinking and that of politicians and philosophers such as Sartre.
Making a stand for tolerance
Over the last few years, a wind of change has blown through the Netherlands’ attitude to a multicultural society. Under the influence of the hardening political climate, the tolerance of the nineteen-nineties has made way for a repressed fear of strangers, in which the imagined threat of Islam features strongly. Various makers in the small theatre circuit with concerns about this hardening are trying to make a stand for a more tolerant attitude, particularly with regard to Islam. The Egyptian-Dutch actor Sabri Saad el-Hamus produced a series of five shows based on the five pillars of Islam, which aimed to help audiences to understand the beauty and complexity of his religion. In Zekket/ Charity (2008) he gave an impressive rendition of an alien being held in an institution where he is taught to adapt his standards and values in line with Western thinking. The nightmare script written by Ko van den Bosch and El-Hamus’ sensitive style of acting in a setting that closely resembles a psychiatric hospital, cleverly offsets the notion that everyone should think the same.
In her shows Is-man (2006) and De gesluierde monologen/The Veiled Monologues (2003), theatre-maker Adelheid Roosen comments on the relationship between men and women according to Islam. She spoke at great length with many Muslims (men and women) before incorporating their stories into a theatre production. There are more companies that reflect upon multicultural society, including MC (Cosmic/Made in da Shade) and DNA (where El-Hamus has recently been made artistic director). These companies focus specifically on shows and subjects that are not only interesting or relevant to white Dutch audiences.
Music enhances meaning
Music is often used to enhance the meaning of a production in the Dutch theatre world. Numerous companies focus specifically on producing musical theatre, but not just moulded around classical music, but often around contemporary music too. The Leiden company De Veenfabriek, for example, has few political aspirations but is both musical and headstrong, going in search of new ways to incorporate music into their productions. The company is led by musical theatre-maker Paul Koek, who enjoyed previous successes during his days as joint artistic director at ZT/Hollandia in Eindhoven with Johan Simons. The productions and small-scale shows produced by Paul Koek vary from musical and colourful shows like a pop concert of Euripides’ rarely performed Smekelingen/Vagrants (2006), via a cross-over between poetry and tap dance in Voet /Foot (2005/2007), to an intimate and moving portrait of Sjaan, a real-life working-class woman from Leiden (Sjaan, geen Jeanet/ Sjaan, not Jeanet (2006). Koek has given a number of young theatre-makers/musicians the opportunity to develop their talents within his company. Under the name Touki Delphine, they work on productions that, although made difficult to describe by the rebellious use of video, installations and music, always sizzle with the energy and enthusiasm of the makers. Another musical theatre company that offers room for young talent alongside its own activities is Orkater, an old hand on the Dutch stage. Music is an important facet of their productions, which move from pop concerts, via movement theatre, to musical drama featuring historical topics.
Young talent in production houses
Companies are not the only places where young theatre-makers are given room to develop. They are also welcome in the so-called production houses and workplaces. These institutes play a unique role in the Dutch theatre system in terms of nurturing young theatre-makers in their development. Inside the protective walls of Theaterwerkplaats Gasthuis-Frascati (a recent merger), Productiehuis Brabant or Generale Oost, for example, they can carry out research, produce small shows and explore the reaches of their own language, often supervised by coaches and/or dramaturgists. Even though the productions are never intended to appeal to large audiences (they are after all only teaching projects), shows have been known to become big hits. The dramatic productions Broeders/Brothers and Toe, Vader drink…/Come on father, drink... made at Gasthuis by Jetse Batelaan, and Hokwerda’s Kind/Hokwerda’s Child by Madeleine Jutten-Matzer attracted full houses throughout the country. Production houses also regularly work together with a range of summer theatre festivals that draw in large crowds in the Netherlands every summer. Festivals are the perfect vehicle for young talent to present new work to a wide audience. And to confront the general public with innovative theatre.. Production house festivals are the ultimate place for young theatre-makers to develop autonomously and to search for the style and content of theatre production that most appeals to them.
The fact that young makers are given the opportunity to develop their own language inside a production house is an important aspect of the Dutch theatre landscape, as it allows them to reinforce the diversity of Dutch theatre in their own way. It is their fresh perspective, their new language for producing theatre and their sheer diversity that will again permeate the tiniest capillaries of the very special and unique world of Dutch theatre.
Robbert van Heuven
