When Laura van Dolron – one of the greatest storytellers on the Dutch stages – doesn’t want to tell any more stories, you know something is wrong. She also looks a bit shaky at the premiere, holding a stack of A4 sheets. Being on stage at all is an achievement, she says.
As a self-proclaimed ‘stand-up philosopher’, Van Dolron always knows exactly what she wants to say, and how. But no story has no clear head and tail, not even a real build. Rather, it is a form of ‘stand-up stream of consciousness’, in which thoughts, philosophical asides, anecdotes and lines of poetry flutter down like shreds. They are sentences like fragments with sometimes a few guitar chords, played by Steve Aernouts from the front row.
An icy landscape emerges from Van Dolron’s words. The performance is an exploration of the pain and loneliness she has been struggling through since a breakup. At night heavy thoughts overwhelm her, she can hardly bear the weight of the world and becomes thin. People are startled when they give her a hug, someone sees her for a bum. There are heartbreaking passages, for example about the fight to be there for her children now.
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If you turn experiences into a story, that replaces the memory, says Van Dolron. That is why she does not want a ready-made performance, but on stage ‘through the pain’. It’s a dark journey, where hope rarely flares. Stories about these kinds of situations are often made by looking back, you realize through this performance. As an audience you see someone who struggled, but has recovered. Now you watch a performer searching for words, hanging with trembling arms from a rock wall, the fathomless abyss below. That is horrifying and almost feels like too much of a responsibility to the public. Is attentive listening enough?