Theater

Graven in de oude artikelen van dit blog doet me ook wat oude dingen nazoeken met een “Hè, wat is daarmee gebeurd?”

It’s been a bit of a grab bag year but overall not as bad as 2023 and a bunch of things seem to be on track.

Looking at conversations from an improv perspective opens a lot of doors for interesting outcomes. It requires active thinking and leaning into the awkwardness both of which are good skills to practice.

I was supposed to see this play six years ago. Let’s say better late than never. Seen Wednesday, March 20th at the Maxim Gorki Theater.

I went to “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” yesterday in one of Berlin’s three operas thanks to this piece in the Guardian. Yes, I have to rely on a British paper for reliable cultural advice about Berlin.

I’ve learned my lessons: I will not go to traditional German theater anymore and I will never again book a play without first checking its duration.

I swore to myself never to go to the theater again 1 which took a lot of the pressure off. But yesterday I did go to see V. in Ballhaus Ost. The posters hanging around town piqued my interest that a group in Berlin would stage a text by Thomas Pynchon. And if anyone should break my rules, it should be me.

I got things back running again. Did a bunch of work on TORREON. Most Hubbub stuff is in a weeknote over there now that I am writing now alternating with Kars Alfrink.

In the performance “Ten Billion” at La Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon Stephen Emmott, a scientist, performed a soliloquy about the state of the world and the environment. He took a message we already have known since the Club of Rome and rehashed that in front of a theater audience over the course of ninety minutes.

I am repeating regularly these days that I am through with theater. I thought I’d see a couple of plays here at the Festival d’Avignon and then decide for myself whether this position is justified. Avignon has the reputation for programming the best theater of Europe. A reputation that turns out to be mostly unfounded.

Ever since the recent re-enactment of Hamlet by Luk Perceval, I have wanted to see something by the Hamburg Thalia theater. Last year I saw Luk Perceval stage Disgrace at TA which was a good display by itself, but still the Thalia remained elusive.

I spent last week in Athens because Lea was at work at the Athens & Epidaurus festival where the Schaubühne staged two plays. I spent the week relaxing, working and taking in the Athens air.

I’ve been into something of a speculative realism binge lately reading quite some books and even more blogs from the field of current day philosophy. Last Monday I finished Ian Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology which is highly recommended if you want to read up on object oriented ontology.

Yesterday night I went to see Maß für Maß (Measure for Measure by Shakespeare) at die Schaubühne here in Berlin and it marked the first occasion where I saw a play directed by the intendant of that theater Thomas Ostermeier himself (see this Guardian piece for a bit of background).

A week or two ago I attended a discussion at the Deutsches Theater ‘Holland in Not’ that was organized because of a recently published book “Der Kulturinfarkt, vom Allem zu viel und überall das Gleiche” that proposed to close half of all theaters in Germany.

Last weekend I saw Husbands by Toneelgroep Amsterdam director Ivo van Hove in the Schaubühne in Berlin. I was not unequivocally enthusiastic about the play, though it has a boisterous quality that has stayed with me these past days.

Talking to two young theater makers yesterday, I remarked that the majority of the Dutch plays I see don’t deliver the relevant and socially engaged experiences I would want them to. To which they asked why I still bothered going to the theater, a question I hear regularly from those in the more modern performing arts. They themselves hardly ever go and they make participatory theater, not the stage dramas that first come to mind. That is a response I get more often: that theater is boring, irrelevant and really ‘Why would anybody want to go?’

Wednesday I went to a performance by a Hungarian theater group showing “Hard to be a God” by Kornél Mundruczó a famous Hungarian director after the story by the Soviet Russian brothers science-fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

“Mooi Weer Spelen”1 is the title of the annual street theater festival that takes over the city center of Delft. This year, I’m living in said center and it’s much easier to see the events.

Ok, zie net een goede reden om in Londen te wonen langskomen op BoingBoing: De Sultan’s Olifant en de Kleine Reus liepen daar afgelopen week rond zie ook de foto’s.

Gisteren naar de voorstelling Tirannie van de Tijd geweest en het was tien keer niks. Hoofdschuldigen waren de slechte tekst, het vage verhaal en het buitengewoon matige spel.

Vlaams theater is anders en daarom alleen al eigenlijk is het de moeite waard maar in Nederland kom je het niet zo vaak tegen.

Navertellen van toneel (zeker dit stuk) geeft meestal niet de beste resultaten. Dat ga ik dan ook maar niet proberen maar ik moet iets kwijt over het toneelstuk dat ik vrijdag gezien heb. Ik had de alleen maar positieve minirecensies op Moose gezien. Het stuk “Gilgamesj“ speelt nog maar tot 26 maart dus ik moest snel zijn.

Ik hoorde vandaag in de hele media-hype rond de dood van Theo van Gogh dat zijn laatste twee projecten Medea en 06-05 misschien wel zijn beste zijn geweest.

Ik ben donderdag samen met Wouter naar Mamma Mia! geweest. Een raar idee, geboren op een borrel en toch doorgezet.