Opening Night

Opening Night is the first major performance of De Hoe, written by all the writers and played by all the actors, across three generations. Influenced by the exceptional cinematography of John Cassavetes and the acting of Gena Rowlands, De Hoe plays the excess, as well as love and vulnerability. Opening Night is a collective search for a New Emotionality in an emotionally saturated society. Flirting with sentimentality play on life and death. Spontaneous, and yet directed. Sincere and yet not.  

Opening Night is an unsettled premiere every night. In desperately filling the void left when an actor loses his words, seven actors together undertake a feverish, tragicomic search for how to be as truthful as possible.

Selected by the Dutch and Flemish Jury Selection 2024
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From the Dutch jury report
The performance Opening Night is arranged around a kissing scene from Cassavetes' film of the same name. The piece is about being old and being young. About following rules and letting chaos exist, pursuing the real and the imaginary. The synthesis of these supposed contradictions seems to be the ingredient with which the evening of drama is set to tension. It results in a packed, beautiful montage in which all the actors are equally glowing and warm in their acting. 

From the Flemish jury report
De HOE is living proof that collectives can indeed molt and stay fresh. Time and again you see how this ensemble manages to tap into new layers in work that remains unadulterated as 'typical De HOE.