’t Barre Land : The Waste Land: Das Wüste Land : La Terre Vaine
’t Barre Land was founded in Utrecht in 1990 when a group of students in theatre studies made a production of Tankred Dorst’s Merlin, oder das wüste Land. Some of them left university to study acting at theatre schools in Amsterdam and Arnhem, but they kept meeting every summer to create a production. After finishing their studies and having worked with other companies, ’t Barre Land decided that in order to realize their ideas and ideals in theatre, they would have to work together full-time.
Actors and dramaturges form the company, which investigates theatre repertoire and literature. Texts - plays, prose, poetry and essays - are always the starting point. Prose is adapted for theatre and most of the plays are translated by members of the company. The dramaturgy, the research and the process of unpacking meaning, takes up most of the time. Everybody is involved in and responsible for the creation of the production. ’t Barre land rarely works with directors, and only then, when a director is willing to join in as a member and able to make the group go further in their thoughts about theatre. With Jan Ritsema ’t Barre Land made Hamle’t and with Guy Cassiers Faust Two. In both productions extreme forms were explored. In Hamle’t the actors focussed on Shakespeare’s philosophy. They presented Hamlet as ‘thinking out loud’, without interpretation, psychology or role-playing. All the actors knew the text by heart and decided on the spot who said what, thus emphasizing Shakespeare’s words and not the plot or characters.
In the way of acting as in dramaturgy ’t Barre Land keeps looking for new ground, yet based on tradition. The actors like to think about what they are playing and how to give form to their ideas. On stage, as at the rehearsal-table, every member of the group bears responsibility for what is said and shown. An actor cannot hide behind the character, but is the ‘carrier’ of a character, a text or an idea. The shared knowledge about the play and its form means that the actors are very free onstage and can make decisions while playing. ‘t Barre Land tries to keep productions in the repertoire for years. During the performances they keep exploring ideas and forms. A play is never ‘ready’, a performance is always under construction. This construction of the play is done openly, face to face with the audience.
The typical playwrights ’t Barre Land performs are Bertolt Brecht (Baal and Dickicht), Goethe (Faust and Torquato Tasso), Shakespeare (Henry IV and Hamlet), Anton Tsjechov (Platonov, Along the highway, The Wedding), Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Ernest combined with An Ideal Husband), Samuel Beckett (Endgame) and Thomas Bernhard (The President). One play or writer often leads to another (i.e. Beckett to Marguerite Duras). Besides classical plays ’t Barre Land has built up a reputation by turning prose in to theatre: Elias Canetti’s Die Blendung, Dostojevski’s Crime and Punishment and Notes from the underground and Duras’ L’ après-midi de Monsieur Andesmas. The choice for classical and historical (dead) writers, gives the possibility to look at our own time with more distance. Texts that were a reaction to the time they were written in are not being ‘actualised’, but researched on their relevance for the present.
’t Barre Land plays in regular venues and on locations in Holland and Belgium and in their own space, de Snijzaal, a former dissection hall of the veterinary institute in Utrecht. The company has build up a profound relation with theatres that are willing to programme the group without knowing what they will be playing.
’t Barre Land is and was Floortje Bakkeren, Vincent van den Berg, Margijn Bosch, Jacob Derwig, Florian Diepenbrock, Anouk Driessen, Sanneke van Hassel, Michiel Johannes Jansen, Peter Kolpa, Ingejan Ligthart Schenk, Martijn Nieuwerf, Ellen Walraven, Simone Scholts and Czeslaw de Wijs.
For more information, please contact us at info@barreland.nl.
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