Antwerp company brings internment tale to Calgary
Belgian actor Dirk Roofthooft has been playing the same role for nearly nine years and he says if audiences have their way he won’t leave that role till he dies.
“They say ‘Please never stop playing that role. Play it for the rest of your life’’ says Roofthooft.
The role in question is the troubled man at the centre of Toneelhuis’s production of Sunken Red which the Belgian theatre company is bringing to Theatre Junction.
Toneelhuis artistic director Guy Cassiers directs the one-man show based on Jeroen Brouwers autobiographical novel of the same name.
Brouwers was born in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia). During the Second World War the Japanese invaded the Dutch colony paving the way for Indonesia’s independence after the war.
As a result a young Brouwers (he was three at the time) found himself — and his family — in a Japanese detainment camp.
“He witnessed awful things. He saw a lot of red” says Roofthooft adding that the colour in the title refers to both blood and the Japanese flag.
Following the war Brouwers and his family were repatriated to the Netherlands; soon after his mother sent him away to boarding school.
“He saw this as a big betrayal by his mother. He started to hate his mother and resent her” Roofthooft explains adding that Brouwers had become an unruly child and his mother found it difficult to manage him.
In the play Roofthooft portrays Brouwers as he revisits parts of his life and tries to come to terms with what he has experienced.
“There are all kinds of flashes from his life — things that happened to him and the after-effects of those things. He talks about a new woman in his life; the birth of his daughter. He is very angry at what happened at the beginning of his life. He is trying to forget but he can’t overcome it. In the end he is immobile” says Roofthooft who describes Brouwers’s journey throughout the play as a “fight against the degradation of beauty.”
For example because of what he had witnessed in the camp as a child Brouwers was unable to watch the birth of his daughter.
Roofthooft portrays a variety of ages throughout the extended monologue and the narrative moves in an unpredictable pattern.
“It’s really a state of mind” Roofthooft says of his performance. “It’s very moving at the end. It’s a man lacking the power to appreciate the beautiful things around him.”
Sharing the stage with the actor are five video cameras and two big screens which capture his performance — and emotions — from all angles.
“The cameras give another point of view of my character…. It gives the sides of the man that he doesn’t want to show to the public” he says. “He’s a little man lost in the big picture.”
Roofthooft likens the script to a musical score.
“The text is so beautiful. As an actor it’s a gift you get once in a lifetime. It’s so beautiful like a symphony from Schubert or Mozart.”
Roofthooft says even though he has been doing the show for so many years he still discovers some surprises and as he ages he says he feels a bigger urgency playing the role now than when he started.
“I wonder if the time I have left is enough to find peace and harmony in my own life” Roofthooft says adding that is something his character never finds.
