De eeuw van mijn moeder

Het Nationale Theater / Eric de Vroedt

De eeuw van mijn moeder is an impressive family story about the migration from the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands. Director Eric de Vroedt wrote this acclaimed marathon performance as an ode to his own mother. A personal and at the same time universal story about migration, emancipation, family relationships, love and life.

The programme is as follows:
6.30 - 7.45 pm part 1
7.45 - 8.05 pm intermission 1 - 20 minutes
8.05 - 9.20 pm part 2
9.20 - 9.45 pm intermission 2 - 25 minutes
9.45 - 11.10 pm part 3

Run time 270 minutes, incl. intermission
Genre theatre
Language Dutch

Small snacks are available during the break, such as a bowl of luxurious nut mix (€ 4.75), ox sausage with Amsterdam pickles and mustard (€ 6.50), cheese with Amsterdam pickles and mustard (€ 6.50) and a hummus bowl with vegetables, herbs and flatbread (€ 7.50).

De eeuw van mijn moeder

In 1948, eight-year-old Winnie (played by Esther Scheldwacht) arrives in the Netherlands, while the war of independence is raging in the Dutch East Indies. In her new homeland she radically opts for being “non-Indonesian”, which means to her: being free, being in control. She marries the Dutch entrepreneur Lex (Hein van der Heijden), falls in love with the Surinamese Gudrun (Romana Vrede) and again and again she fights for her autonomy.
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When Winnie turns out to be terminally ill at the age of eighty, her son Ramses (Bram Coopmans) reconstructs her life in a provocative exhibition in the Kunstmuseum in The Hague. He shows what traces the colonial past has left in the lives of Winnie and her children. Mother and son meet in an Indonesian shop in The Hague for a conversation they never dared to have before.

Eric de Vroedt about De eeuw van mijn moeder

'During my mother's life we had the usual mother-son struggles, but after her death I had the opportunity to delve into the woman she was before she became a mother. I found hundreds of letters she had written and discovered a young woman full of dreams and ambitions. My mother's tragedy was that she was so eager. She was interested in absolutely everything, but unfortunately it never got any direction.'

Reviews

de Volkskrant

'Hyper-personal, intimate and layered drama'

NRC

'A fascinating field of tension between the political and the personal'

Theaterkrant

'Great performance by Esther Scheldwacht in postcolonial drama'

Credits

text and direction Eric de Vroedt
cast Denise Aznam, Emma Buysse, Bram Coopmans, Yela de Koning, Hein van der Heijden, Betty Schuurman, Roben Mitchell, Johannes Wirix-Speetjens, Mark Rietman, Esther Scheldwacht, Joris Smit, Liza Macedo dos Santos and Romana Vrede
dramaturgy Willemijn Barelds
set design Maze de Boer
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lighting and video design Bernie van Velzen
costume design Lotte Goos
music Remco de Jong & Florentijn Boddendijk
assistant director Chyramain van Kempen
choreography performance part2 Art Srisayam
context programme Sophie Plekker, Laura van Zuijlen, Dimphna van Kempen