Scenografia

Leo de Nijs

Ronald Roffel

costumi

Dorine van lJsseldjjk

allestimento tecnico Veenstudio

Ton van der Meer

Paul Koek

produzione

Nico Bink

Erin Coppens

datore luci

Ate-Jan van Kampen

fonico

Will Jan Pielage

Theatergroep Hollandia beneficia dei contributi della Provincia del Noord‑Holland e del Ministero olandese dell'Educazione, Scienza e Cultura

Versione tedesca con sottotitoli in italiano

There are one-book wonders and one-deed men It is obvious that Marinus van der Lubbe belonged to the latter category, even though he did maintain a travel diary, wrote letters and even two poems. On 27 February 7933, he started the notorious fire in the Reichstag in Berlin. It was an act of protest, intended as a signal to all German workers to rebel against Hitler It wasn't even a very big blaze only the meeting chamber really caught fire, but even its dome remained intact, despite all the photos forged by the Nazis to show flames pouring our of the building on all sides.
So it wasn't really a very clear signal Van der Lubbe's deed was so important because Hitler used it as an excuse to arrest five thousand left-wing opponents, to help him win the election and en passant to suspend the constitution his dictatorship was established.
But everyone knows that and that is no reason to put Marinus van der Lubbe on the stage, even though it turned into a personal tragedy for him because that is what you can call his trial.
The Nazis wanted to prove a Communist plot and the Communists that he was used by the Nazis That fight made mincemeat of him his deed was literally stolen from him During the trial, Van der Lubbe finally literally hung his head, leading people to have their doubts about his mental powers And that his how he lived on in many people's memories as a backward young man who was misused by the browns or the reds That too is tragic Because Marinus clearly foresaw -as early as 1933 -that the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor would not just lead to misery for the workers, but also to a second Great War And he wanted to prevent that with his deed On his own, because he couldn't get any support and that is more than just tragic 'The Story of Marinus' is all about whether a single person can turn a disastrous social movement. And that is a question we still pose so it can be sensible to look at how Marinus van der Lubbe tried to find an answer his deed was -however disastrous -the most eloquent protest possible at that time he was uneducated, his statements were unarticulated, he often had no idea what reality was, but he had imagination and courage
Those who take an interest in the life of the young Dutch bricklayer from Leiden, Marinus van der Lubbe, comes across more or less familiar facts that he was strong as an ox and nicknamed Dempsey after the world boxing champion that he had an empty cement bag pulled over his head during a romp on the building site impairing his eyesight so he had to live on benefits t.hat in Leiden he led the Communist youth group and sometimes managed to attract about 150 kids with whom he acted out Mayday parades or made plays about strikes He was always there when a demonstration got out of hand and led to fights with the police That he wanted to rent a dune excavation or start up a reading library so he could earn his own living, but that the provider of his benefits would not give him the money he needed That he then broke their windows and was given three months in jail That he then wanted to be the first Dutchman to swim the channel to earn the prize of five thousand guilders that was offered by the weekly Het Leven and cycled to Calais twice invain That he tried to walk to Soviet Russia because he wanted to know -and that was as early as 1931 -whether it really was a paradise there That he tried to walk to China but got stranded in Bulgaria
But Hollandia is more interested in what Van der Lubbe thought than in all these facts of his life
Hollandia regards this portrait of Marinus van der Lubbe as one of a series of portraits of labourers, only making use of their own statements Last season in Kingcorn Bert Luppes played a worker in a disused flour factory in Leiden based purely on literal interviews Fedja van Huet now plays Marinus van der Lubbe in Ongebluste kalk, which only uses his diaries and letters Later this season this will be followed by Biotex, in which Peter Paul Muller plays a worker in the disused factory in Rotterdam where this washing powder was produced This show is also made up of literal texts from interviews
In all these plays, the structure given to the text is decisive The structure of Ongebluste kalk is based on Woyzeck by Georg Buchner Van der Lubbe's life story displays so many parallels with that of Buchner's hero that you can call Marinus a 20th-century Woyzeck

The music for Ongebluste kalk is largely electronic The musicians express themselves in their music and sometimes they are, as in the past, the comrades of Marinus or his judges or the guards with Van der Lubbe for his last few hours They create the world around him by putting together a musical panorama of what was heard during his conversations with his comrades, on his travels and eventually in court authentic recordings of his voice and background noise will be used, incorporated into samples or brief blocks of music A minor direct reference to Leiden and to the mother of Marin us IS the tearjerker by the famous Dutch singer Mary Servaes, who came from Leiden
The music is literally written to the music the order of the scenes is also the order of the various parts of the composition The music frequently grabs the text by the ears and vice versa Fedja van Huet for instance first performs five scene, and after each individual scene, music composed for that scene is played The music is used by the actor as reminiscence And when Van der Lubbe for instance says in the text 'the people sing', then we allow the music to sing
The music is related to contemporary music because composer/sonologist Florentijn Boddendijk uses samples of authentic sound fragments, while Remco de Jong uses sounds and rhythms from contemporary dance and techno music. They found each other in the Lo-Fi field of white noise, beats and historic recordings

The Veenstudio was founded in 1996 as a music theatre lab within Hollandia The Veenstudio is a workshop where music Clans, composers and actors led by Paul Koek develop ideas for a new and individual form of 'electrical' music theatre These ideas can find their ways into the shows of Hollandia, or result in theatrical concerts and music shows, that are presented by the Veenstudio possibly as co-productions
The resident nucleus of the Veenstudio are formed by Paul Koek, composer/sonologist Florentljn Boddendijk and musician Ton van der Meer Among the Veenstudio productions of 1997 were in Felix Meritis a piece for tenor sax and tape called F, in the IJsbreker Machine Agricole II and In Gasthuis Henriette Koch
sings. In 1998 the Veenstudio released two co-productions Mijlpaal er trilt iets with the Maarten Altena Ensemble and Fantastic Rhythm with the Dutch Jazz Orchestra

Back to Shows and Co- productions