Ode to the obscure and the hidden on De Parade

Cycling as the backdrop to a story about friendship: it’s not the most original premise the creators of Vuelta have chosen. In the show of Het NUT that can be seen on De Parade these days, actors Dennis Coenen and Marcel Roelfsema play two friends who climb the ranks of cycling in a brotherly way, until one of them stabs the other in the back at the supreme moment. The actors give a very physical performance: on bicycles secured on stage they simulate the bicycle rides of the friends until sweat pours from their faces.

However, it produces zero substantive tension. Frank Heinen’s text spoons up cliché after cliché (male pride and competitive drive are central, but also doping scandals, the choice between family and career and the toll of fame are touched on briefly and without inspiration) and the direction of the game by Reinout Bongers is straightforward. straight ahead. Vuelta offers no surprises from start to finish.

De Poezieboys (actors Jos Nargy and Joep Hendrikx) together with author Joost Oomen and composer Willie Darktrousers prove that you can also be accessible at a festival like De Parade without falling into total complacency. The foursome went in search of the work and life of the extremely obscure early twentieth-century poet Jörgi Eisføgl. The makers came across one of his poems in an antiquarian bookshop and became fascinated, all the more when they found that a search on Google yielded no results.

Direct play style

Literature search hardly led to more information, and in Eisføgl the makers therefore try to make a story of exactly three poems and three biographical details. The fact that this nevertheless produces interesting theater is due to the enthusiastic, direct acting style and the focus on the beauty of the absent: the lack of facts offers the makers the opportunity to work associatively. In a combination of theatrical lectures, explanations of the research and the musical interventions of Darktrousers, the makers create an ode to the obscure and the hidden in a time when everyone’s everything is on the street.

Theater maker Steef de Jong treats the audience to a lieutenant on the same kind of enthusiasm – in his case it concerns the operetta genre, and in this performance specifically A Walzer Traum by Oscar Straus. De Jong explains to us that he will make an adaptation of the piece this autumn at the Vienna Volksopera, but that he will go through the operetta with us at high speed in preparation. He has prepared a life-size sketchbook for this, which serves as a witty piece of string decor for this Parade version.

But even with ‘turbogeschwindigkeit’ it still feels too drawn out. Straus’ operetta is a deadly dull farce with cardboard characters, predictable soap operas and old-fashioned morals. With his ironic play and the visual ingenuity of his pop-up scenography, De Jong manages to keep boredom at bay for some time, but in the end it feels like a super fan of Good times Bad Times you retell the plot twists with shining eyes: more fun for the narrator than for the person who has to listen to his incomprehensible fascination.

Also read: Looking for that typical Parade performance