Gerard Thoolen
1943 - 1996
Toestanden
Thijs Chanowski
Joop Admiraal, Yolande Bertsch
"Conditions" - The improvisation-based performance was inspired by psychiatrists such as RD Laing (Family and Madness) and J. Foudraine (Who is of wood). The Werkteater played this performance 'in the den of the lion': in psychiatric institutions for patients and carers. This led to very intensive and adventurous performances in which 'a lot' always happened. Afterwards the discussions sometimes ran high, but even during the performance the audience sometimes mixed themselves in the scenes.
Toestanden
The Flying Dutchman
Jos Stelling
René Groothof, Veerle Dobbelaere
Late 16th century, persecuted protestantism and general dissatisfaction with the Catholic Habsburg rule in the Netherlands lead to large-scale plundering and vandalizing of churches, only harshening the Spanish Inquisition, sparkling the Eighty Years War.
The Flying Dutchman
Een zwoele zomeravond
Frans Weisz, Shireen Strooker
Marja Kok, Helmert Woudenberg
A husband, half of an entertainment duo, the Nellicos, tells his wife, who is the other half of the duo, that he has another woman. But they cannot discuss this as he tells her only just before they are due to perform in front of a large audience. (BFI)
A Hot Summer Night
De smaak van water
Orlow Seunke
Gerard Thoolen, Dorijn Curvers
Hes, an uptight and disaffected social worker reaching retirement, discovers a young woman, Anna, in the closet of an acquaintance who has committed suicide. Realizing that she has been kept in the apartment all her life, he moves in and helps her comes to terms with the complexities of the real world.
The Hes Case
Prospero's Books
Peter Greenaway
John Gielgud, Michael Clark
An exiled magician finds an opportunity for revenge against his enemies muted when his daughter and the son of his chief enemy fall in love in this uniquely structured retelling of the 'The Tempest'.
Prospero's Books
Het teken van het beest
Pieter Verhoeff
Gerard Thoolen, Marja Kok
In 1928 in the northern part of the Netherlands, a man has an affair with the wife of one of his friends (who is in jail at the time). Because she abandons her children to move in with him, the police are sent to arrest her. This leads to a dramatic confrontation.
The Mark of the Beast
Rooie Sien
Frans Weisz
Willeke Alberti, Beppie Nooij Jr
After her mother -- a prostitute -- is murdered by her father, Sien is raised by her grandparents. Instead of a bourgeois life with grocer's son Gerrit van Buren, she chooses for an adventurous life with toutman Jan Meier. She follows him and becomes a revue artist in an Amsterdam cabaret, until her father comes to see her...
Rooie Sien
De IJssalon
Dimitri Frenkel Frank
Gerard Thoolen, Bruno Ganz
Otto, a Jewish refugee who managed to escape from Berlin in the early days of WW2, is now the owner of an Amsterdam ice cream parlor. Otto's place soon becomes a microcosm of the city with its German invaders, Dutch collaborators and anti-fascist resistance groups.
Private Resistance
