Preview
LIBERATORS, OCCUPIERS AND POPULATION
One Yellow Rabbit
Hebbel am Ufer
Het Huis van Bourgondië
Presented as part of the High Performance Rodeo
Runs January 4 to 8
Big Secret Theatre (Epcor Centre)
A highly militarized nation invades another country and claims to have benign intentions to introduce its own ideology. At first, the people of the occupied country welcome the invaders, but as time goes on and the full truth about their occupiers’ agenda emerges, they begin to put up a resistance.
Yes, the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands from 1940 to 1945 has some, shall we say, interesting parallels with the current situation in Iraq.
They didn’t go looking for it, but the theatre artists who’ve created Liberators, Occupiers and Population, the three-way international co-production receiving its North American première at this year’s High Performance Rodeo, couldn’t help but see some similarities as they began researching their commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Holland.
Today, despite the best efforts of politicians, we are more aware that world conflicts can never be reduced to black and white, to heroes, villains and victims. The Second World War, so often held up as the exemplar of the just and necessary war, was no less complex than more modern hostilities. And to better understand a small piece of that war – the German occupation and Canadian liberation of the Netherlands – Germany’s Hebbel am Ufer, Canada’s One Yellow Rabbit and Holland’s Het Huis van Bourgondië decided to look past the forest, as it were, and study the trees – the individuals who experienced it firsthand. What was it like living day to day then? What do people remember? What can we learn from it?
POPULATION
This project, a triptych of three short theatrical works presented in one evening, was instigated by a young Rotterdam-based director, Feico Sobel, and Maarten Verhoef, artistic director of the Het Huis van Bourgondië company in Maastricht.
"Maarten suggested it would be interesting to do an international triptych on the Second World War," says Sobel, "and that I should do the (section about) the population." With this rough idea they attended the 2003 IETM (Informal European Theatre Meetings) conference in Birmingham, England, where they hit it off with One Yellow Rabbit co-artistic director Michael Green, who agreed to supply the Canadian "liberators" side of the picture. Shortly afterwards, Sobel and Verhoef also connected with veteran German director Hans-Werner Kroesinger in Berlin, who signed on to do the third "occupiers" part. They all met initially at last year’s Rodeo, then reassembled in Maastricht in the spring. This fall at Rotterdam’s Schouwburg civic theatre they did a test run of the three mini-plays, in various states of completion, which was well received.
The Dutch segment is entitled Two Minutes, in reference to the two minutes of silence observed every May 4 in the Netherlands to remember those who died in the war.
Sobel says it deals with "the subject of memories and whether they still correspond to the facts or have been romanticized." He and playwright Don Duyns interviewed close to 20 Maastricht-area residents who had lived through the occupation and used their recollections as the basis for the text. "The play became a gathering of fragments of memories from these elderly people," says Sobel.
At the same time, it also addresses the difficulty that the latest generation of adults has in commemorating a war they don’t remember. The play is performed by three young actors in their 20s and 30s – Eva Damen, Luc van Loo and Mara van Vlijmen – and opens with a speech by one of them about the two-minutes of silence. "She says, ‘Sure, I know I have to think about Anne Frank, about the camps, about the Jews and the homosexuals and the gypsies, and the resistance fighters who fell. But I don’t know them,’’’ says Sobel. "The whole play then becomes an attempt by the young people to get into the stories of the elderly people."
In fact, given that most of the survivors interviewed for the play were children or teenagers at the time of the war, the stories also come from youthful perspectives. Many of the Dutch remembered being awestruck by the larger-than-life Canadian soldiers. "They were so grand and wonderful, like they were from another planet," says Sobel. "But actually, they have the same kinds of stories about the Germans, because they marched and sang so well. It was very impressive for a 13-year-old to see in those days."
Not all the memories are golden, however. "There’s a huge variation in these stories," says Sobel. "We heard the story of an eight-year-old kid who had been in a mistaken bombardment by the Brits of Venlo, in the north of Limburg. So his memory of being liberated is not really a happy one."
The play is "about common people in an uncommon time," says Sobel. "We want to let their small stories be heard."
He’s excited by plans to present the triptych in Amsterdam and Maastricht this coming May, during Holland’s 60th-anniversary celebrations of the liberation. "Every year (at that time), all kinds of movies are broadcast on television about the Second World War, from Saving Private Ryan to Soldier of Orange," he says. "What we’re trying to do is, on one hand, to broaden the subject by showing all three different (viewpoints), and to make it a get-together as well – of the Canadians, the Germans and the Dutch. And that’s a good thing, because still we don’t invite the Germans (to Holland) on our memorial day, which I think is a shame."
OCCUPIERS
In Germany, Hans-Werner Kroesinger was less fortunate when it came to finding ex-soldiers who had been part of the occupation. Those still living were understandably reluctant to share their memories of an ignominious time in German history. But that didn’t daunt Kroesinger. The noted Berlin director, who earned his avant-garde spurs working with the likes of Robert Wilson, Heiner Muller and David Byrne, specializes in a style of documentary theatre that uses historical documents as its text.
"Since Feico’s piece was focusing on memory, I thought I’d deal with the other side — the official communications from the Germans," he says. He combed the war archives in Berlin and Amsterdam to cull the material for his work, called Plan Gelb (Plan Yellow) – the Nazis’ name for their plan to occupy the Netherlands. The text includes speeches by the German official in charge of the occupation, Reich Commissar Seyess-Inquart, played in this production by actor Armin Dallacipolla.
Kroesinger discovered that, when the occupation began, the Nazis took a persuasive approach towards the Dutch people.
"The Nazis had this idea of self-Nazification. They saw the people of the Netherlands as belonging to the Germanic race, so they tried in the first year to get them to join the movement," he says. "I found this interesting – how you deal as an occupying force with the people, so that they not only don’t attack you, but actually collaborate with you."
And Seyess-Inquart’s speeches had a familiar ring to them. "When you take some of these sentences out of context, it could be as if someone from the American government has spoken it today," says Kroesinger. "It’s quite surprising."
Seyess-Inquart himself is no burlesque Nazi. "The guy you meet in this performance is educated, the things he says sound reasonable. He’s quite charming," says Kroesinger. "So you have to change your image of the past. It’s much more complicated than just a portrayal of the bad guy."
If the old people in Germany don’t want to talk about the Second World War, the young ones are fascinated by it. Kroesinger says there’s a growing interest in the subject and points to a new film drama about the last days of Hitler, Downfall, which has been seen by 4.5-million Germans since it was released in September. Documentaries about the period are also very popular. "It’s the last chance for this young generation now to contact the people who experienced the war, before they die out," he says.
How will Plan Gelb and the rest of the triptych be received when they play Berlin’s Hebbel am Ufer theatre in the spring? Kroesinger says it will touch on a part of the war Germans are less familiar with. "We know a lot about the occupation in the east, in Russia, but not in the west – the Netherlands, or Luxembourg and Belgium and France," he says. "So I think there will be an interest and people will be ready to (deal) with it."
LIBERATORS
For its panel of the triptych, entitled Friction, One Yellow Rabbit’s research ranged from battle sites and cemeteries in the Netherlands to Calgary’s Museum of the Regiments, not to mention the bar of the No. 1 branch of the Royal Canadian Legion.
"Something very powerful happened to Michael (Green) when he was sitting, drinking in the Legion with (Sobel and Verhoef) last January," says director Blake Brooker. "There were these guys at a table beside them, a conversation started, and one of them turned out to have been in Holland in 1945. He was talking about how he never shot his gun in anger, and that just stuck in Michael’s mind."
The image of Canada the peacekeeper engaged in aggressive frontline battles against a foe seems increasingly alien as time goes by. "It’s a disturbing idea," says Brooker. And one that many younger Canadians have never even entertained. "A lot of people today couldn’t tell you that Canadians even participated in the liberation of Holland," he says, "but it was one of the big things that we did in the Second World War. Many Canadians died in Holland, sacrificing themselves in a country they knew nothing about."
In contrast to their Dutch and German colleagues, the Rabbits have opted to create composite characters based on their research. "We’re looking at individuals who are amalgams, bits and pieces of the real people we’ve read transcripts of and talked to," says Brooker. "We’re looking at (the events) through individual perspectives and then tying them together so that hopefully we can understand a little more what happened." The piece is performed by Green, Andy Curtis, Brad Payne and David van Belle.
Although Friction makes no direct references to present-day warfare, Brooker says a Second World War play right now can’t help but be seen through the "prism" of Iraq and be coloured by it. And the differences are as significant as the similarities.
"It isn’t the same," he says. "We’re looking back at what has been called an honorable war, a war of necessity versus a war of choice." And yet, however noble the motive, the message from the survivors is the same.
"No one who experiences war ever wants to do it again. Never. And would never wish it upon anybody," says Brooker. "Yet the cycle repeats itself. Why do we do this? Are we going to do this forever?"
But this show is a testament to the fact that the animosities bred by war can eventually fade away.
"What attracted us to the project was that it would once again bring together the Germans, the Dutch and the Canadians, who were locked together by history and fate 60 years ago," says Brooker. "At one time we would have been fighting the Germans and they would have been occupying Holland, and the Dutch would have been resisting them. Now, here we are, collaborating on a work about it all." |
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