We hebben een/het boek (niet) gelezen
Six actors in search of…
More than a hundred years ago, the German writer Thomas Mann wrote The Magic Mountain, a colossus of a book, a monument of world literature, a compulsory read for any educated person...
At the start of the 21st century, six actors ask themselves how they should approach this book, a book ‘like this’, ‘a’ book. By reading it? By acting it? Or by reading and acting it and discussing this literature and the performance with one another? Like the book, which is the story of an enterprise that gets out of hand, this enterprise too gets out of hand: the main character, Hans Castorp, travels to Switzerland to visit his cousin, who is in a sanatorium there. What was supposed to be a three-week trip turns out to be a seven-year stay in the mountains.
We hebben een/het boek (niet) gelezen is an unusually interesting – and very amusing – performance about the problematic way in which 21st century man deals with his cultural heritage, as well as being a performance about acting and the acting pleasure experienced by six 21st century actors.
text Thomas Mann (after The Magic Mountain), Jef Aerts (excerpt from his adaptation Hoogtezon) | conceived and performed by Gillis Biesheuvel, Sara De Roo, Damiaan De Schrijver, Willem de Wolf, Peter Van den Eede, Matthias de Koning | technique Steven Breys, Pol Geusens, Tim Wouters | thanks to Zip Boterbloem, Johan De Handschutter, Theo Kramer, Bart Van Dessel, Sven Van Looy, Monica Verhofstadt | production de Koe, Dood Paard, Maatschappij Discordia, tg STAN | in collaboration with Kaaitheater
