photo credit: Jan Versweyveld
Italy is the birth place of Comedia dell'arte, New York is known for it's Broadway theater district, and London has The West End. There are numerous places to go during your travels where you can see some great theater.
But no list is complete if Amsterdam's not on it. Seriously, this city is teeming with creatives performing on the street, in theaters, and during festivals. There are numerous theater groups, troupes, and organizations in Amsterdam putting on some excellent performances.
And while Dutch is the language of the Netherlands, it's relatively easy to find a way around that if English comes to you a bit easier. If you can't find a performance in English, theater companies like Toneelgroep Amsterdam offer the next best thing: English subtitles.
We've talked about TGA on the blog before, but they're back yet again with another surtitled performance, this time, charming audiences with their rendition of In Ongenade (Disgrace). The play is based on the book by J.M. Coetzee in which professor David Lurie escapes to his daughter's farm in the Eastern Cape of South Africa after having an affair with a student. A brutal attack on the farm sweeps him up into the tangled web of post-apartheid politics. The 2008 film adaptation featured John Malkovich in the leading role.
Flemish director Luk Perceval leads a cast starring Gijs Scholten van Aschat as David Lurie through what he calls a story depicting "man’s survival instinct; with his passion, his desire and his search for the justification thereof."
The show runs 24-28 April at the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam. This season, all Thursday performances by Toneelgroep Amsterdam will be surtitled in English. The theater company promises that the surtitles will be projected as close to the actors as possible, and will be controlled manually to ensure that it coincides with the action.
You can grab more information and purchase tickets at the Toneelgroep Amsterdam website. To the theatah!
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