Thomas “With Het land Nod, we want to work in a different way than we normally do. This time we want to try as much as possible to postpone ‘the start’ until the first day of rehearsals so that as little as possible gets decided beforehand. We started working on our last production, Van den vos, years in advance. That was a very intense period and our energy was already somewhat depleted by the time rehearsals started. That’s something we want to avoid at all costs now; we want to make something in one big burst of energy. We’ll mainly take our cues from the place where we are going to play, which hasn’t been decided yet. A very big part of the contents will be inspired by that.”

Stef “And by the story that we as FC Bergman have been busy with ever since our first production. Every project is always a reaction to the previous one.”

Thomas “The title refers to the Biblical story of Cain and Abel and more specifically, Cain’s place of banishment after murdering Abel. It’s a place of aimlessness, a place of ‘aimless wandering’...”

Stef “… which is a metaphor for the world. ‘The Land of Nod’ is not bad as a title, I think, because it reveals our view of humanity.”

Maarten: “Your company is part of a big production house that receives quite a lot of subsidies. Which raises the question of whether such a house should simply make good productions or also concentrate on the broadening, education and participation of its audience. What do you think theatre should try to do in this regard?”

Marie: “I don’t think theatre should do anything, or that an audience should do anything. You make theatre because you want to share a story about something that affects you. It’s very much about sharing.”

Stef: “And about intensely trying to communicate with your audience. What we’re developing for Het land Nod right now is how to tell our story in the best way, the story that we began when we started FC Bergman and that in the meantime has become enriched and broadened by our experiences and by the projects we have already done.”

Thomas: “That story is always about the tragic human condition of believing we can change something in life. That’ s the essence of what we want to say with FC Bergman: man thinks he can create and shape the world according to his own ideas and insights, but he always fails. The human condition always contains an inherent impossibility.”

(…)

Maarten: “With your productions, are you somewhere in the twilight zone between factions in society that have a kind of renewed belief in change and really want to work on that, and people who are purely busy with art?”

Marie: “Despite our conviction that the typically human urge to grasp and understand the world is in fact impossible, I do believe that making the attempt is very necessary. And what we want to show is precisely that attempt, much more than the impossibility in itself.”