Since the death of his wife, Amani’s grandfather has been completely absorbed in the internet. Literally: in order to fully utilize his newfound freedom after her long illness, he had himself uploaded. Like a child in a candy store, he is overwhelmed by the new possibilities. To the great sadness of Amani and her brother Maçon, who now have to deal with the loss of grandmother without the support of grandpa.
It’s just one of the intriguing storylines in Grandma is an avatar, the new youth performance by theater maker Eva Line de Boer. Amani’s best friend Zoë has also lost her grandmother, and wants to bring her back to life as an avatar as a comfort to her sad grandfather. Together with Amani and Maçon, she embarks on a journey of discovery through the dark web. There, the trio not only meet Amani’s grandfather, but also all kinds of other internet residents, such as a memorial site shared via social media and an oracle that communicates via emojis.
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If that sounds complicated, it is. Both the strength and the weakness of Grandma is an avatar is in the narrative, conceptual and visual excess. Not only storylines and characters tumble over each other, the visual elements also offer an enormous wealth. The costume design by Carly Everaert connects the analog and digital world in a stimulating way, and video makers Karlijn Milder and Mats Logen draw on drawings by schoolchildren. a illusory internet reality on. Then there are also the songs of rapper Willem de Bruin (The Opposites), who as a digital cat comments on the fortunes of the characters.
The multitude of styles and angles fits well with the high stimulation density of social media and the internet, but sometimes makes the theater performance somewhat fragmentary: with one or two characters less Grandma is an avatar been even sharper. Nevertheless, the particularly intelligent script by Yentl van Stokkum keeps the underlying emotional line intact: how do the characters deal with the loss of their loved ones, and how do they find each other again in their individual mourning processes?
By always zooming in on the struggle of Amani, Zoë, Maçon and their grandfathers to give their grief a place, the excellent cast makes room for humanity amid all the conceptual and digital violence. This is how . offers Grandma is an avatar a moving vision of bereavement in digital times, in which the complexity of the theme is done full justice.