LINDENBERG x THEATER OOSTPOOL

The Drama

The Dutch class society finally on the chop block.

In The Drama, director and theatre maker Florian Myjer fillets our class society in a theatrical way, with humour and painful honesty. Because the fact that the Netherlands supposedly has no classes is a story that has long been outdated. Yet we rarely talk about it. But how do we talk to each other about class? The Drama opens a conversation that we often avoid and exposes the mechanisms that divide us.

During an evening of debate at an important cultural institute, four prominent figures gather on stage to finally talk about class. But what begins as an idealistic attempt to break the silence soon tilts into something more personal and confrontational. Shame, blind spots and hidden anger come to light mercifully. As the evening takes a direction that no one had foreseen, the speakers fully experience how much their origin has shaped them and how difficult it is to connect with someone who - apparently - is far from you.

Where Myjer with the successful Pride & Prejudice dissed the patriarchate on the basis of personal stories, he shows in The Drama how class difference is the great equaliser in human lives. How do our dreams and desires relate to such a dominant social system?

A sharp and layered representation that rubs, disrupts and touches. The Drama is a tragicomedy that is both hilarious and painfully recognisable and that forces you to think about what we would rather leave unspoken.

“This is what theatre is for.” ★★★★★ – NRC on Pride & Prejudice