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De moed om te doden

Guy Cassiers, Toneelhuis

With the play De moed om te doden (Courage to Kill) Guy Cassiers takes the subject of power and manipulation – which he has approached over the last decade mainly from a political and European standpoint – back to his seminal scene: the family and the tension between parent and child, in this case father and son. 

De moed om te doden links up with productions like Natuurgetrouw (True to Nature) to a script by Harold Pinter which Guy Cassiers performed with his father Jef Cassiers, Rotjoch and De Wespenfabriek (The Wasp Factory). In those plays the confrontation between parent and child leads to outbursts of physical and verbal violence, but also to truth and understanding.

The setting for De moed om te doden could not be simpler: an apartment and in it a father and a son (and later on in the play the son’s girlfriend Radka). The characters in Norén’s plays are characterized by a double bind with their provenance and their past. They want to escape their suffocating environment, but are afraid of life outside it. They devise protection and survival strategies right up to the moment when those strategies can no longer provide the solution. 

This awareness of change is essential to an understanding of Norén’s work. This is what he had to say about Courage to Kill: “For me working as an artist is a way of finding out so much about yourself, about your life, that you have to change it. In my poetry I could avoid direct confrontation. I didn’t want that any more. The first thing I wrote was a radio play, Depression. And immediately after that Courage to Kill (…). I believe that the forces within us, our fears, longings, courage, father, mother, I believe that those forces are incredibly strong. They have a controlling influence over us because they are denied.” 

A tragic ritual unfolds in the homely setting of the apartment. In order to survive, the son attempts to free himself of the father. Like few other writers, Norén manages to expose the aggressive and defensive language mechanisms which the characters use against each other and against themselves. The dialogues are vicious and trenchant, but not devoid of (black) humour which cuts through the stifling atmosphere of the events. When the father tries to seduce the son’s girlfriend, it is clear that the confrontation has reached the point of no return… 

director

  • Guy Cassiers

author

  • Bart Van Nuffelen

text

  • Lars Norén

translation

  • Karst Woudstra

with

  • Aminata Demba
  • Dirk Van Dijck
  • Wouter Hendrickx

production

  • Toneelhuis

All data

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  1. Saturday 5 November 2016 — 20h00 — Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerpen
  2. Monday 7 November 2016 — 20h00 — Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerpen
  3. Tuesday 8 November 2016 — 20h00 — Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerpen
  4. Wednesday 9 November 2016 — 20h00 — Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerpen
  5. Saturday 12 November 2016 — 20h00 — Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerpen
  6. Sunday 13 November 2016 — 15h00 — Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerpen
  7. Tuesday 15 November 2016 — 20h00 — 30CC/Schouwburg, Leuven
  8. Wednesday 16 November 2016 — 20h00 — 30CC/Schouwburg, Leuven
  9. Tuesday 22 November 2016 — NTGent/Schouwburg, Gent
  10. Wednesday 23 November 2016 — NTGent/Schouwburg, Gent
  11. Thursday 24 November 2016 — 20h00 — NTGent/Minnemeers, Gent
  12. Saturday 26 November 2016 — Grote zaal ITA, Amsterdam
  13. Tuesday 29 November 2016 — CC Maasmechelen, Maasmechelen
  14. Thursday 1 December 2016 — Theater Rotterdam, Rotterdam
  15. Friday 2 December 2016 — De Schuur, Haarlem
  16. Saturday 3 December 2016 — Stadsschouwburg Utrecht, Utrecht
  17. Tuesday 6 December 2016 — Warande/Schouwburg, Turnhout
  18. Wednesday 7 December 2016 — CC De Werf, Aalst
  19. Thursday 8 December 2016 — CCHA, Hasselt
  20. Saturday 10 December 2016 — Parktheater, Eindhoven
  21. Tuesday 13 December 2016 — 20h00 — Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerpen
  22. Wednesday 14 December 2016 — 20h00 — Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerpen
  23. Thursday 15 December 2016 — 20h00 — Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerpen
  24. Friday 16 December 2016 — 20h00 — Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerpen
  25. Saturday 17 December 2016 — 20h00 — Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerpen
  26. Tuesday 20 December 2016 — Chassé Theater, Breda

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