Braakland

Attention: this is an open-air performance; please wear suitable clothing! The walk there and back is part of the duration of the performance. We can on request provide transport.

A wasteland, a desolate landscape on the fringes of society, situated between a dumping ground and a factory, between the noise of a motorway and the scarce twittering of birds. Theatre on location. Theatre in, and in relationship to a landscape. The desolation of the environment is reflected in the loneliness of the characters who wander around in it.

The atmosphere and the nine figures in this location performance by the young Dutch theatre-maker Lotte van den Berg are inspired by the work of J.M. Coetzee, the South African writer who received the Nobel Prize for literature in 2003. The audience watches from a great distance. The characters no longer talk. Human communication has disappeared from their lives. They potter about and passively surrender to the laws of life and death. 

Lotte van den Berg: ‘People who have stopped fighting. People who no longer defend the value of life. This is painful. Perhaps our greatest fear is not death but how worthless life is. In Braakland (Wasteland) the fear is made tangible, not to hurt or condemn, but to offer comfort.’