On the fringes of the negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles, three people meet in a hotel lobby in Paris. The Great War is over, the atmosphere is exuberant: the twenties are ready to roar.
The young, brilliant economist John Maynard Keynes - openly bisexual at a time when that was still punishable - is one of the negotiators. One night he falls for the charms of Lydia Lopokova, a ballerina from the Ballets Russes who is staying at the same hotel. She mistakes an African man in the hotel for a servant. That one, however, turns out to be Charles D.B. King, envoy to Liberia, the only free African country. King is therefore the only black negotiator at the conference. A conversation about freedom begins. What all three of them seem to be looking for.
a coproduction by Het nieuwstedelijk, Staatstheater Mainz and Theater im Bauturm Köln.
Hoe dan ook are 9 short plays created during the lockdown and shared with our audience during 9 Facebook live events between the dates of May 14th and July 2d 2020.
They are as varied in form as a dreamlike composition with a poem as voiceover to an absurd conversation in the ‘’smoking room” of a Zoom party, and in theme from a woman trying to radio up to the international space station after an outbreak to an actor refusing to perform without a live audience.
In some the current reality is very present: most so in a monologue of a doctor saying goodbye before being put into an artificial coma, in some only simmering in the background: a man trying to cancel his honeymoon ..But all trying to connect to our audience “Hoe dan ook / One way or another “
In Influence a well-known YouTuber is pondering how to use the little influence she hasI (In English)
Buffering (Dutch spoken + subtitles) a woman is trying to have an honest conversation with her daughter in between the glitches (with English subtltles)
The other 5 piecese are Dutch spoken.
After the death of their daughter, a couple moves to Singapore.
She starts a demanding job as CEO of a nanotech company. He strolls through the monsoons and seems to see his daughter’s words in the rain.
A conversation ensues. A purifying story about love and loss. A story based on the personal experience of our award-winning playwright Stijn Devillé, told by two musicians, two actors and a rain printing device.
written and directed by Stijn Devillé with Tom Van Bauwel & Sara Vertongen, music by Gerrit Valckenaers & Geert Waegeman and video by Walter Verdin. English spoken version created for Schauspielhaus Graz
Last Call is the English version of Dansen Drinken Betalen – (almost) The Movie. It is in fact almost a movie. But it's also a lot more than that. Playwright and theater director Adriaan Van Aken and graphic artist Philip Paquet transformed their new comic book into a dynamic video projection for the big screen. Live on stage, actress Sara Vertongen and keyboard miracle Joris Caluwaerts (well known Belgian pop bands Zita Swoon, Stuff, Magnus,...), add voices, sounds and music to the graphic story. Result? The most vivid and at the same time most comfortable reading of a comic book that you could ever wish for