Hidden in the forests of Diever has been an open -air theater for almost eighty years: the Shakespeare theater. Every summer and winter they give a performance, always from the same writer: William Shakespeare. This summer they play Hømlet, or Hamlet, but with a twist.
For Expeditie Nederland, reporter Ineke Kemper visits the theater company. She is in the rehearsals of the theater piece, and a few weeks later with one of the performances. She speaks with director Jack Nieborg, who has been taking this role for 25 years. And special, in the almost eighty years he is only the third director of the company.
He tells her how the theater originated just after the war and how it got bigger every year and there were more performances. One thing in Ineke soon becomes clear: if the Shakespeare virus has you, it won’t let you go. And it is contagious too. Because entire families now contribute to the theater. If someone from a family is going to participate, it often does not take long for several family members or other family members to come along and also board. Some as an actor, others as a volunteer.
“But we also feel a big family,” say Anne Peter van Muijen and Inge Wijers. “Every year you often see the same faces.” Anne Peter plays the role of King Claudius this season, Inge Mag Hømlet.
They tell about the preparation, why they love to play at the theater in Diever and about the special location. In the middle of the forest, in the open air with a stage that is in the middle of the audience. “The show actually always continues. Only with a thunderstorm do we leave the forest, but in the rain the ponchos just appear,” explains director Jack Nieborg. “It gives so much atmosphere,” both actors say. “Then the people are eating under their poncho’s snacks. I spoke to someone who was in the pouring rain a year earlier. The person was so happy that she had come, he had had such a nice experience.”
And where Shakespeare has been a tradition in Diever for almost eighty years, eating their own snacks is too. Many people lug along, besides blankets and pillows, cool boxes with food and drink. Eighty years ago you did not have a catering industry at the theater and so the people took their own drinks and dries. After all these years, the visitors still do that. During the break we see the bags open, trays with dry sausage and pieces of cheese are distributed and drinking cans open.
You see it in this episode of Expeditie Nederland.