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.
I brought my bike with me to Rotterdam because I figured it was only slightly cheaper to store my bike at central station and get an OV-fiets, while having my orange fixie with me in Rotterdam would be a lot more fun.
It’s always a pleasure to take the Maastunnel to the South part of town:
And I seemed to have grossly misjudged the time it would take to bike out to the venue so I had to blast full speed for fifteen minutes to make it in the nick of time. Glad I brought my race bike at that moment.
The venue is the same of the Onderzeebootloods, our new Dutch gallery hall which I’d still planned to visit, but which seems to close its current exhibition tomorrow. Pro-tip: tomorrow is also the yearly testing of the Maeslantkering, so you should be able to see both if you’re headed that way (which I’m not).
The play was great. Hyperrealistic: no. Shocking: only slightly (anybody with a modicum of exposure to the internet has seen much much viler stuff). Touching: yes after a while. Our performance was heckled by some senile old bastard who did seem to think it was shocking. Interesting use of a second stage and video transmission as a way to mediate the action to the audience.
Biking through the port of Rotterdam during night time is a pleasure and I would like to repeat it, further out up to the Maasvlakte would be nice. I’d planned on doing it while I still lived in the area, but never got around to it.
I wrote a quick mini review in Dutch at our great theater site Moose.