Not the real thing

Anneke Bonnema and Hans Petter Dahl have been associated with Needcompany for several years; they have worked together as performers, writers and composers on the much-praised Isabella’s Room. Robert Steijn is a dramaturge and performer. In the 04-05 season he appeared in the Kaaitheaterstudio’s in the controversial Frans Poelstra, his dramaturge and Bach. Together Bonnema, Dahl and Steijn form L&O Amsterdam. L&O stands for Love and Orgasm.

After several years L&O has once again made a performance that is a cross between spoken theatre and performance art. It is a performance about thought, about the reality value of thinking, or how, although thinking is finite, the imagination nevertheless survives. It is a play about theatre that is no longer performed but only conceived. With three performers who transport the audience to worlds that are physically untraceable.

In Not the real thing Anneke Bonnema, Hans Petter Dahl and Robert Steijn ask themselves how real a world can be that is only imagined and how imagination affects us if it denies or transcends the coherence of thought. Not the real thing creates a place where the consciousness assumes a horizon of potential imagination and thought as yet unknown. Not the real thing is like a pastoral and is set in a field that lies above the tree line. The participants/audience are allowed to bring their own drinks.