After the very exhausting weekend last week, this one was much more relaxing. The best part of it was Saturday night.
As a belated birthday present to T., M. and I had bought tickets to see a play by the largest (and best?) theatre company in the Netherlands: Toneelgroep Amsterdam. We saw the play Kruistochten (Crusades) by Alan Ayckbourn.
I was a bit hesitant at first: the play started at 6pm, and was scheduled to last for five hours. Now I like theatre, but suspected that this might be a bit too much. I was very wrong.
Instead of it being one play for five hours non-stop, it consisted of three seperate plays of approximately 80 minutes each, with 30 minute breaks in between. After the first part, we all agreed it was very good and promising. But, considering that the three plays were supposed to tell the same story we were wondering how they would keep it interesting until the end.
Somehow every play had a twist to it which kept it interesting. It was funny, the actors were great - hmmm, Roeland Fernhout...;) -, despite a very sober decor the visual effects and music used made it original, and the cat! How could I forget Jaap, the cat. It was on stage for the full five hours, just sleeping, yawning, well you know, doing cat stuff. Very mysterious actually.
Every part highlighted different aspects of the story, gave a more prominent role to some of the actors, etc which gave you more and more details of the story. At the end, all of the pieces of the puzzle fitted together perfectly.
Anyway, what I mean, for the Dutchies reading this, go and see it!
It is part of the 'topstukken 05/06' series, a selection of the best four plays of this season. Kruistochten has a very deserved place in this selection, as far as I'm concerned.
As a belated birthday present to T., M. and I had bought tickets to see a play by the largest (and best?) theatre company in the Netherlands: Toneelgroep Amsterdam. We saw the play Kruistochten (Crusades) by Alan Ayckbourn.
I was a bit hesitant at first: the play started at 6pm, and was scheduled to last for five hours. Now I like theatre, but suspected that this might be a bit too much. I was very wrong.
Instead of it being one play for five hours non-stop, it consisted of three seperate plays of approximately 80 minutes each, with 30 minute breaks in between. After the first part, we all agreed it was very good and promising. But, considering that the three plays were supposed to tell the same story we were wondering how they would keep it interesting until the end.
Somehow every play had a twist to it which kept it interesting. It was funny, the actors were great - hmmm, Roeland Fernhout...;) -, despite a very sober decor the visual effects and music used made it original, and the cat! How could I forget Jaap, the cat. It was on stage for the full five hours, just sleeping, yawning, well you know, doing cat stuff. Very mysterious actually.
Every part highlighted different aspects of the story, gave a more prominent role to some of the actors, etc which gave you more and more details of the story. At the end, all of the pieces of the puzzle fitted together perfectly.
Anyway, what I mean, for the Dutchies reading this, go and see it!
It is part of the 'topstukken 05/06' series, a selection of the best four plays of this season. Kruistochten has a very deserved place in this selection, as far as I'm concerned.
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