Teenager Alban lives in Amsterdam with his mother Zana, who left Kosovo during the war in the Balkans. When he starts going out with the sensitive Ana, neither of them has any idea that unresolved injustices and shadows from the past will make their way to the surface. This insightful, mature debut by a Kosovan director reminds us how difficult forgiveness and reconciliation can be.

Nights are long inside Naomi and Ram's room. Tonight, they've invited Marina over and their messy space is under scrutiny.

After The hidden force, Ivo van Hove made a second adaptation of a novel by Couperus: The things that pass, this time a coproduction with Toneelhuis (Antwerp).

Directing The hidden force, Ivo van Hove got rid of the image that had been stuck to Couperus since the 1970s. Not a costume drama in The Hague, no tempo dulu (the good old days). But he did get straight to the core of this visionary novel: the culture of the west, irreconcilable with that of the east.



The second project is based on the majestic psychological novel Old people and the things that pass (1906). Couperus imagined an ‘appalling and dreadful tragedy’. We see how a hushed-up murder of passion in the Dutch East Indies continues to have a devastating influence on the family of the elderly Ottilie and Takma. The hushing up of their adulterous relationship and the murder of Ottilie’s husband leave deep traces in the consecutive generations, who are trapped in an unresolved past.

Lot and Elly are the youngest members of this doomed family. They hope to be able to free themselves from the stranglehold of The Hague, but arrive back home disillusioned after their honeymoon in Italy. There is no escaping this family that is damaged by horrible secrets that should never become known.

Just like in The hidden force, Couperus shows that he is far ahead of his time. He paints the portrait of a modern family that does not cohere and is literally spread out to all the corners of the world. The family members struggle with their lustfulness, their faith, dreams of material happiness and mutual jealousy. A family where almost nobody dares to give in to their deepest wishes and desires, to be who they really are.

Everything is seemingly under control in the life of successful businessman Peter Egerman. But during a visit to a brothel, he suddenly snaps: he kills and rapes a prostitute. What caused this outburst?

Ingmar Bergman wrote in an explanation: ‘In fairly short, often interrupted or deliberately torn apart scenes, I attempt (as an outsider) to give a kind of account. I have abandoned every kind of interference. However, none of the occurring characters can make claims to explain or clarify the drama. They are all involved and therefore confounded.’

In short, engaging scenes that take place before the murder, an image of model citizen Peter Egerman is created. He is caught in a web of social expectations, woven by his wife Katarina, his mother, his psychiatrist and his friends. In their testimonies after the murder, Bergman gauges the smallest vibrations hidden deeply within the layers of the human psyche like a seismograph. From the life of the marionettes is more than the investigation into the motives of an opportunity murderer. The play exposes the suffocating patterns in a society where success is too often regarded as a replacement for genuine tenderness and love.

Bergman himself thinks that everyone should draw their own conclusions. People are like marionettes, suspended by strings they don’t control themselves. Beneath the surface of a successful and controlled life, there are passions struggling to get out. Or like Tim puts it: ‘I’m being driven by forces I can’t control. Doctors, lovers, pills, alcohol, work: nothing helps. They are secret forces. Do they have a name? I don’t know.’

With her first stage directing, film director Nanouk Leopold adds a fifth Ingmar Bergman title to our repertoire. Previously, Ivo van Hove directed Scenes from a marriage, Cries and whispers, After the rehearsal and Persona at Toneelgroep Amsterdam.

The name Judas is familiar to many of us. The traitor. The scorned man. A man condemned century after century for his cunning cowardice and who to this day deserves no pardon - or - is that perhaps half a story?
When you hear the name Judas, you think of betrayal. He is the man who agreed to hand over Jesus in exchange for 30 silver coins. That is the official version. However, in the Gospel of Judas, Jesus asks Judas to betray him, which means he did it because Jesus himself had asked him to. And that is strange, because Judas’ deed leads to the crucifixion of Jesus.

Robert Icke became fascinated by this other version of the story: Judas as the true, perfect disciple of Jesus. A play about the positive side of betrayal.

Previously, Robert Icke created an acclaimed contemporary version of Oedipus and The Doctor at ITA. He created a sequel to Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, called Children of Nora.

In 1903 Daniel Paul Schreber published Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, one of the most remarkable studies of madness 'from the inside' ever written. Schreber was a successful lawyer, already well into middle age when he started to receive messages from God, via a 'Writing Down Machine'. He spent the next nine years confined to an institution suffering delusions of cosmic control, and believing that the only way to save the world was for him to submit to God's plan to change him into a woman. Conceived as part of a transmedia project by Simon Pummell (Bodysong), Shock Head Soul uses documentary, drama and animation to piece together Schreber's story, combining beautiful images and formal precision with fascinating insights from psychiatrists, analysts and social commentators past and present. Shreber's case and his struggle to free himself from institutional care make for compelling viewing, revealing a fascinating mix of family secrets, psychotic visions, and questions of religious freedom and technological advancement that are still relevant today.
Sandra Hebron
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