Giovanni's Room

Director Eline Arbo adapts James Baldwin’s timeless classic into a music theatre production about love, identity and the fear of being yourself. Giovanni’s Room explores themes of sexuality, internalised homophobia and social pressure, and asks: can you feel at home anywhere if you are not allowed to be yourself?

A moving story of passion, loss and the struggle between intense longing and social expectation, based on Baldwin’s masterpiece.

Selected by the official jury of the Dutch Theatre Festival 2025

Date: September 4, 2025 - March 22, 2026
Duration: 125 min, no interval
Genre: Theatre
Taal: Dutch

Giovanni’s Room tells the story of David, an American in France looking back on his time in Paris. It is a city of expats, liaisons and violence. There David waits for the return of his fiancée Hella. But when he meets Giovanni, a charismatic Italian barman, the two men become caught up in an intense affair. After three months David’s fiancée returns and he is forced to make a choice.

Baldwin tells the story of a doomed relationship that examines the conflict between desire, conventional morality and sexual identity. With a sharp, searching imagination Baldwin delves into the mystery of love and charts the social alienation that follows from a society unable to cope with a different view of sexuality. Giovanni’s Room is therefore a deeply moving story of death and passion that lays bare the complexity of the human heart.

'I stand at the window of this great house in the south of France as night falls, the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.'

Director Eline Arbo

"With Giovanni's Room I am adapting one of my favourite books for the stage. It overflows with poetic, telling images of what it is to be searching for who you really want to be. It is a book against pigeonholing people. Baldwin shows the internalised homophobia of the central character, who feels the social pressure to be only one thing. At the same time it is about the polarisation of artistry. Baldwin was told by his publisher and his agent that they did not want to bring the book out, because a novel with a white central character would alienate him from the black community. Baldwin published the book with a smaller publisher because he was convinced that the struggle for equality was one single fight. I find it deeply inspiring how radically Baldwin dared to fight for empathy and equality. That is a very important and radical counterforce."

Reviews

NRC

'With wonderful abandon the actor fights his way across the almost empty stage (scenography Roel Van Berckelaer), accompanied by superbly composed electronic music (composition Thijs van Vuure) that is beautifully performed and sung by the actors themselves.'

Trouw

'With Trump only just in power it seems an almost searingly topical reference to the bitter wind the LGBTQ+ community has to face.'

Het Parool

'For the first time in the collaboration between director Eline Arbo and her regular artistic and life partner Thijs van Vuure, the music is entirely written and composed by them. That works out wonderfully.'

James Baldwin

James Arthur Baldwin (1924-1987) emerged as a leading voice in the socially critical literature of the 20th century. His social conscience was deeply shaped by the segregation and poverty of his youth, which would later find searing expression in books that have become classics, such as Go Tell It on the Mountain and If Beale Street Could Talk.

Seeking solace and creative inspiration, Baldwin took refuge in the bohemian atmosphere of artistic Paris. In the cafés of Saint-Germain-des-Prés he immersed himself in the literary scene and developed lasting friendships with figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. There he explored themes of identity and belonging against the backdrop of a city pulsing with artistic fervour.

Paris became not only his muse but also the setting for his groundbreaking novel Giovanni's Room. Baldwin caused outrage as a black writer writing about white gay men, but for him the questions of racism and homophobia, sexuality and personal freedom were closely interwoven.

Baldwin's commitment to social justice reached beyond the streets of Paris. He returned to the United States during the turbulent 1960s of the civil rights movement. Although he refused the label 'civil rights activist', Baldwin was an inspiration to the movement and a personal friend of Martin Luther King. Books such as The Fire Next Time served as a catalyst for change and urged society towards greater understanding and equality.

Behind the scenes at Giovanni's Room