Intrigue in the highest circles, characters in black historical costumes with white collars, the wavering gay young man Carlos, son of Philip II of Spain: with the play Court scenes Playwright and director Karst Woudstra immediately established his reputation in 1981. In the character Carlos he put a lot of himself: the guiltless son in conflict with his father and perhaps also in advance the countless conflicts in which Woudstra had to deal with during his later career in the theatre. Last Tuesday, August 29, he passed away in his hometown of Amsterdam, after a long illness. He himself decided to end his life at 12:00 pm, as he announced on his Facebook page. He was 76 years old.
Karst Woudstra was born in Leiden in 1947. His parents had a bad marriage and the young Woudstra ran away from home at the age of sixteen, he had already attempted suicide by taking plant poison. He was early attracted to Scandinavian theater with playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg. In Stockholm he studied theater studies, where he became acquainted with the work of playwright Lars Norén (1944-2021), whose plays as Demons and The Frost Licker translated into Dutch; he also made an effort to ensure that Norén – with whom Woudstra befriended – was played by the Dutch companies. He himself directed in 1983 at the Public Theater of Norén The night, mother of the day, a family tragedy with Ton Lutz and young, brilliant actors like Pierre Bokma and Hans Dagelet. It became one of the company’s most important performances.
Belgium
Woudstra is regarded as a man with a difficult character who, despite his success, considered himself undervalued and not always understood. He also suffered from depression. When he visited the theater or went down the street in Amsterdam, he was always dressed in deep black, lately he leaned on a walking stick. Woudstra worked intensively with director Gerardjan Rijnders, who also Hofsenes brought to the scene. Together with Rijnders and Ger Thijs, he wanted to make the Publiekstheater, the predecessor of the current International Theater Amsterdam (ITA), the most important repertory company in our country, but the plan failed and Woudstra left for Belgium disillusioned. There he led a lonely life, lived in boarding houses. His last direction was at the Stadsschouwburg Silence of Norén, a symbolic title.
Nevertheless, he recovered and started writing and directing again, not only for the Flemish company De Korrekelder with which he found a connection, but also with the Noord Nederlands Toneel and the National Theater, among others. He also worked at the leading Royal Dramaten in Stockholm, the company of theater and film director Ingmar Bergman.
The importance of Woudstra for Dutch theater since his debut Court scenes in priceless. Not only because of his translations of Scandinavian playwrights, but also because of his own work as a director and playwright. In his play A black Pole (1992, directed by Albert Lubbers) he gave a superior form to the fear of the Dutch citizen for labor migrants. It was unique that this subject was treated so incisively on stage. Other large pieces by Woudstra are Bury a dog (1989), Meyerhold’s left hand (1990) and Dove Clock (1993). Both in his productions and in his own texts, Woudstra was averse to all fashion; he was strict in the doctrine of married text theater in that regard. His work, like that of Ibsen and Norén, belongs to the psychological realism that he depicted in great intensity. He used magnification and strong emotions.
Withdrawn
His text The silent grays of a winter day in Ostend (1993), staged by Noord Nederlands Toneel in collaboration with the Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwburg in Brussels, resembles a self-portrait of the author: it is about a playwright who has bitterly retreated to Sicily where he mourns the death of his younger brother. He wants to bring him to life on stage. In an interview with dramaturge Alex Mallems, printed as an introduction to A black Pole, says Woudstra: “Theatre is everything in my life. It is a surrogate of reality, hence my aim to experience reality on stage.” For Woudstra, making theatre, as he says in the same interview, was linked to his ‘will to survive’ in order to overcome his ‘destructive powers’.