Giovanni's Room
Director Eline Arbo adapts James Baldwin's timeless classic for the stage. A music filled performance about love, identity, and the fear of being oneself. Giovanni’s Room explores themes such as sexuality, internalized homophobia, and societal pressure, posing the question: can you ever feel at home if you’re not allowed to be yourself?
A poignant story of passion, loss, and the struggle between deep desire and societal expectations, based on Baldwin’s masterpiece.
Run time 125 minutes
Genre Theatre
Language Dutch
Surtitles English, Thu 30 Jan, 20 & 27 Feb
Introduction in English Radical Space: Isaiah Lopaz on 27, 28 Feb and 1 Mar
In Gesprek Fri February 27
Please note that this performance uses strong lighting effects including a stroboscope.
Giovanni's Room
“I am standing by the window of a large house in the south of France as night falls, the night that will carry me into the most terrible morning of my life.”
This is how the story of David, an American in France who reminisces about his time in Paris opens. It is the city of expats, liaisons, and violence. Here, David awaits the return of his fiancée Hella. But when he meets Giovanni, a charismatic Italian bartender, the two men become entangled 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, a story that explores the conflict between desire, conventional morality, and sexual identity. With his sharp, probing imagination, Baldwin delves into the mystery of love. He paints a picture of the social alienation that is a consequence of a society unable to cope with a different view on sexuality. It creates a deeply moving story of death and passion, that reveals the complexity of the human heart.
ELINE ARBO ABOUT GIOVANNI'S ROOM
“With Giovanni's Room, I am getting the chance to adapt one of my favourite books for the stage. It brims with poetic, poignant images about what it is like to be in search of who you really want to be. The book challenges you to contest pigeonholing. Baldwin portrays the internalised homophobia of the main character, experiencing the societal pressure to be just one 'thing'. At the same time, it deals with the polarisation of artisthood. Baldwin was advised by his publisher and agent Knopf not to publish the book, fearing that a novel with a white protagonist would alienate him from the black community. Baldwin ignored this advice and went on to publish the book with a smaller publisher, convinced that the fight for equality was all one single battle. I find it very inspiring how Baldwin dared to fight for empathy and equality in a radical way. That is a very important and radical counter-force.”
Reviews
NRC
"With wonderful devotion, the actor (Smits) battles his way across the virtually empty stage floor, accompanied by fantastically composed and very, very beautifully performed and sung electronic music by the actors themselves."
Trouw
"With Trump just in office, it almost seems like a radically timely reference to the harsh winds facing the lhbti+ community."
8weekly
"Arbo creates a wonderful performance."
Concertnews.be
"Absolutely worthwhile are the songs created especially for Giovanni's Room. Eline Arbo wrote most of the lyrics, Thijs van Vuure set them to music which produced an impressive result."
Het Parool
"For the first time in the collaboration of director Eline Arbo and her regular artistic and life partner Thijs van Vuure, the music was written and composed entirely by them. That works out wonderfully."
James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin (1924-1987) emerged as a leading voice in the social criticism literature of the 20th century. His social consciousness was profoundly shaped by the segregation and poverty of his youth, which would later be poignantly expressed in such classics as Go Tell It on the Mountain and If Beale Street Could Talk.
Seeking solace and creative inspiration, Baldwin found refuge in the bohemian ambiance of artistic Paris. In the cafés of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, he immersed himself in the literary scene and developed lasting friendships with luminaries such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. There, he explored themes of identity and solidarity against the backdrop of a city pulsating with artistic fervour.
-|-
Paris became not only his muse, but also the setting for his groundbreaking novel Giovanni's Room. Baldwin caused outrage by being a black writer who wrote about white homosexuals. For him, however, the issues of racism and homophobia, sexuality and personal freedom were deeply intertwined.
Baldwin's commitment to social justice extended beyond the streets of Paris. He returned to the United States during the tumultuous years of the 1960s 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 like The Fire Next Time served as a catalyst for change and urged society towards greater understanding and equality.
In English | 27 Feb - 1 Mar | The Bookshop
Introduction: Radical Space with Isaiah Lopaz
Isaiah Lopaz is a transdisciplinary artist from Tongvaland whose work revolves around collage, photography, text and performance. Lopaz started Black Visual Grammar in early 2024, a mobile archive that highlights black perspectives within various themes and topics. The performance on February 21 will be preceded by an introduction by Lopaz, which will focus on Baldwin's themes and Lopaz will relate these themes to his archive.
Fri February 27
IN GESPREK
After the performance, come and think, listen and chat at In Gesprek. We invite a guest to further explore the themes of Giovanni’s Room and to exchange experiences. If you have any questions, this is the perfect time to ask them. In Gesprek is free of charge and starts shortly after the performance in one of our foyers, is conducted in Dutch and lasts about half an hour.
PROGRAM BROCHURE
Read more about the story, the music and the creative team of Giovanni's Room in our digital brochure.
GO BEHIND THE SCENES OF GIOVANNI'S ROOM
Eline Arbo is Artistic Director at ITA since September 2023. From 2022 she was already linked to ITA as Associate Artistic Director. From January 2023, Arbo was appointed Ibsen Artist in Residence, an initiative of the Philip Loubser Foundation, which gives directors with an international ambition the opportunity to develop themselves artistically.
In season 24|25, she will create Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin), The Wall (Marlen Haushofer) and Time for Joy (Arne Lygre); re-make The End of Eddy (Édouard Louis) and The Years (Annie Ernaux), which she previously directed elsewhere; and her stagings of The Laws (Connie Palmen), Prima Facie (Suzie Miller), Penthesilea (Heinrich von Kleist) and The Hours (Michael Cunningham) will be reprised.
Credits
by James Baldwin
director Eline Arbo
adaptation Eline Arbo and Bart Van den Eynde
translation Eefje Bosch and Manik Sarkar
composition Thijs van Vuure
scenography Roel Van Berckelaer
lightning design Varja Klosse
dramaturgy Bart Van den Eynde
costume design Rebekka Wörmann
assistant director Zorba Huisman, Angelo Ormskerk, Emma Deleu (intern)
assistant music Jonas Meijer (intern)
assistant scenography Leanne Vandenbussche
assistant light Mike Evers
assistant costumes Jelena Bondt
-|-
produced by special arrangement with Concord Theatricals Corporation
private producer Marcelle and Joost Kuiper, Gabriëlla de Rooij and Hendrik Jan ten Have, Jeroen van Ingen and Jaap Kooijman, Bertil van Kaam and Felix van der Heijden
this production is supported by Ammodo
coproducer Teatro Nacional de Catalunya
This production is supported by
