Freaky Friday Face Off

You have been taught as a child, you practice it all your life, but it remains one of the hardest things to do: putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

In Freaky Friday Face Off, the actors take this very literally: they become the other person. Lightning strikes or an evening of magic gets out of hand and suddenly they switch bodies. Man becomes woman, straight becomes gay, old becomes young. You know the principle from vulgar Hollywood films: body-swapping guarantees spectacle. Or did they always have sneaky philosophical undertones?

De Warme Winkel takes a closer look at our fascination with identity through an ingenious role-playing game. Can you tell someone's story if you haven't experienced their history first-hand? Is that super-empathic or just an embarrassing form of appropriation? Can an actor play someone else at all or is acting an art form that belongs to the past, like the fresco?

De Warme Winkel is known for their intelligent performances that also often question the theatre. Yet their productions are always deeply rooted in human existence, full of interest in personal and political reality. Both substantive and witty, historically aware but looking to the future, purely dogmatic in its curiosity. Freaky Friday Face Off, after De Warme Winkel plays De Warme Winkel and A Sincere Ode to Irony, is the third volume in the series of obscure-intellectual themes for the general public.

concept Florian Myjer, Ward Weemhoff, Marieke de Zwaan
text Florian Myjer, Marieke de Zwaan
direction Ward Weemhoff
collaborators Yassine Chigri, Wine Dierickx, Tessa Jonge Poerink
performance Abatutu, Yassine Chigri, Wine Dierickx, Tessa Jonge Poerink, Florian Myjer
set design Theun Mosk | Ruimtetijd
assistant set design Rients Dijkstra, Marija Prosheva | Ruimtetijd

composition and sound design Marijn Brussaard
assistant composition Boudewijn Scholten
lighting design Scott Robin Jun
costume design Valérie Pos
assistant costumes Gina van Os
cat handling Sabine van der Helm
campaign image Lonneke van der Palen

coproduction Wunderbaum, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam
with thanks to Ammodo, Fonds 21, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Fonds Podiumkunsten en Rebecca van Unen (Oi Mundo Casting)