Beroemden

A Dadaist feel

Maatschappij Discordia, De Koe, tg STAN and Dood Paard have all acquired an almost legendary status with their theatre work. Together, and in varying configurations, they have created productions that are among our all-time favourites, four of which are: deschrijverdekoning, my dinner with andré, vandeneedevandeschrijvervandekoningendiderot (thereby dusting off that giant of French theatre, Diderot), and we hebben een/het boek (niet) gelezen. The latter was the theatre adaptation of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain (‘The play was better than the book!’).

   Last summer they unleashed their eighth ‘poly-coproduction’ on mankind: Beroemden (krediet opgeëist op basis van beweringen van verworvenheden of kunde). Their short promotional text speaks volumes: ‘Either both or, as if, in case it could be or is, in whatever pronounced manner in this matter or, rather, why it can have happened or had to happen in this way, there is, in short, no evidence available to indicate that it appears to be obvious, full stop’.

They spent no fewer than five years working on the production. They started out with Thomas Bernhard’s Die Berühmten, which was soon ditched, and then went on to incorporate the most noteworthy sentences from Hans Fels’ documentary Leven in Afrika (VPRO, 2003), thus giving it an odd Dadaist feel.  ‘If you allow everything in Beroemden to sink in, it will leave you feeling depleted but purified’, wrote Loek Zonneveld in De Groene Amsterdammer.