Euripides’ controversial icon is reborn in visionary director Simon Stone’s (Yerma) stunning contemporary rewrite. Rose Byrne (Damages, Bridesmaids, You Can’t Take It with You) and Bobby Cannavale (The Lifespan of a Fact, The Hairy Ape, The Motherf**ker with the Hat) face off as a husband and wife in the tumultuous throes of an unraveling marriage. Transposing the devastation of Greek tragedy to a modern American home, Stone’s stripped-bare staging throws the couple’s every raw emotion into stark relief, from jealousy to passion, humor to despair. Who will pay the price?

After The hidden force, Ivo van Hove made a second adaptation of a novel by Couperus: The things that pass, this time a coproduction with Toneelhuis (Antwerp).

Directing The hidden force, Ivo van Hove got rid of the image that had been stuck to Couperus since the 1970s. Not a costume drama in The Hague, no tempo dulu (the good old days). But he did get straight to the core of this visionary novel: the culture of the west, irreconcilable with that of the east.



The second project is based on the majestic psychological novel Old people and the things that pass (1906). Couperus imagined an ‘appalling and dreadful tragedy’. We see how a hushed-up murder of passion in the Dutch East Indies continues to have a devastating influence on the family of the elderly Ottilie and Takma. The hushing up of their adulterous relationship and the murder of Ottilie’s husband leave deep traces in the consecutive generations, who are trapped in an unresolved past.

Lot and Elly are the youngest members of this doomed family. They hope to be able to free themselves from the stranglehold of The Hague, but arrive back home disillusioned after their honeymoon in Italy. There is no escaping this family that is damaged by horrible secrets that should never become known.

Just like in The hidden force, Couperus shows that he is far ahead of his time. He paints the portrait of a modern family that does not cohere and is literally spread out to all the corners of the world. The family members struggle with their lustfulness, their faith, dreams of material happiness and mutual jealousy. A family where almost nobody dares to give in to their deepest wishes and desires, to be who they really are.

Everything is seemingly under control in the life of successful businessman Peter Egerman. But during a visit to a brothel, he suddenly snaps: he kills and rapes a prostitute. What caused this outburst?

Ingmar Bergman wrote in an explanation: ‘In fairly short, often interrupted or deliberately torn apart scenes, I attempt (as an outsider) to give a kind of account. I have abandoned every kind of interference. However, none of the occurring characters can make claims to explain or clarify the drama. They are all involved and therefore confounded.’

In short, engaging scenes that take place before the murder, an image of model citizen Peter Egerman is created. He is caught in a web of social expectations, woven by his wife Katarina, his mother, his psychiatrist and his friends. In their testimonies after the murder, Bergman gauges the smallest vibrations hidden deeply within the layers of the human psyche like a seismograph. From the life of the marionettes is more than the investigation into the motives of an opportunity murderer. The play exposes the suffocating patterns in a society where success is too often regarded as a replacement for genuine tenderness and love.

Bergman himself thinks that everyone should draw their own conclusions. People are like marionettes, suspended by strings they don’t control themselves. Beneath the surface of a successful and controlled life, there are passions struggling to get out. Or like Tim puts it: ‘I’m being driven by forces I can’t control. Doctors, lovers, pills, alcohol, work: nothing helps. They are secret forces. Do they have a name? I don’t know.’

With her first stage directing, film director Nanouk Leopold adds a fifth Ingmar Bergman title to our repertoire. Previously, Ivo van Hove directed Scenes from a marriage, Cries and whispers, After the rehearsal and Persona at Toneelgroep Amsterdam.

A powerful father-son drama plays out in the ignored, impoverished Dutch province of South Limburg, which offers no opportunity for escape. Neither for the characters, who carry on an unequal struggle against their social conditions, nor for the audience. Gluckauf’s chokehold is much too firm for that.
Fifty-something Lei (Bart Slegers) is a petty criminal just about getting by in the Dutch province of Zuid-Limburg. His son Jeffrey is everything to him; all he has. Gluckauf revolves around this suffocating love. However, it is afflicted by a curse that has its roots in the history of the region.
Without the point being overly laboured, the closing of the mines in this forgotten part of the Netherlands is felt in every pore of the narrative, like a wound that just won’t heal. This curse (Lei’s ex-wife refers to it as a ‘punishment’) is given beautiful visual form. Many of the settings are sombre and dark, like omens of what is to come. And during a crucial car journey undertaken by father and son - the moment their estrangement begins to sound final (Jeffrey says Lei ‘sounds like a woman’) - all we can see is a glimpse of Lei’s face, and total darkness is just around the corner.
Remy van Heugten, who grew up in this area, has made a personal, gripping film that convinces on every level: script, acting, camera, art direction and editing are all rock solid. The abrasively realistic style is unmistakeably reminiscent of the films of the Dardenne brothers, who set most of their films just a stone’s throw away. With Gluckauf, the Netherlands now has its own version, every bit as powerful and painful.

A wedding is planned in the 1930s on the Andalusian countryside. The marriage is loveless because it was arranged by the families for business reasons: the bride and groom hardly know each other.
A wedding is being planned on the Andalusian countryside in the 1930s. The marriage is loveless as it is arranged by the families for financial reasons: bride and groom hardly know each other. When the bride's former lover shows up on the day of the party, old feelings resurface. Driven by an indestructible love, the bride and her lover run off during the party. A savage manhunt is launched. The outcome is fatal.

Blood Wedding, by the Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, was staged with the ITA Ensemble by internationally renowned Belgian choreographer and director Wim Vandekeybus, a regular guest in our dance programming. Known for his strong physical and theatrical dance language, he was previously responsible for the dance scenes in Ivo van Hove's Age of Rage at ITA. Music, video and film are an integral part of his theatrical expression. For Blood Wedding, Vandekeybus worked together with his son, film director Fernando Vandekeybus.

Lucas Rijneveld received the prestigious International Booker Prize for the English edition of his debut De avond is ongemak. The translation rights of his widely acclaimed second novel Mijn lieve gunsteling have so far been sold to fourteen countries. Ivo van Hove is the first director to adapt this heartbreaking and at the same time terrifying novel for the stage.
A novel that the author himself thought no one would ever want to read, but which became a bestseller in a short time. A 49-year-old vet develops a forbidden love for a farmer's underage daughter during a sweltering summer.

A love that quickly becomes an obsession. A story with moving but also intense scenes in which the adult man and the 14-year-old girl grow closer and closer until the border is crossed.