Operation Hellfire

11 Apr '26 to 25 May '26

Het Nationale Theater / Eric de Vroedt

With Operation Hellfire, director Eric de Vroedt produces a political thriller in which law, power and morality clash hard. What if an American president has to appear before the International Criminal Court? With Rick Paul van Mulligen, Gustav Borreman, Soumaya Ahouaoui and Yamill Jones, among others.

Run time tba
Genre Theatre
Language Dutch

Operation Hellfire

The year is 2023. The prime minister of the Netherlands is organizing an international summit on the collapsing world order. He wants to start a countermovement, back to a time when (international) law really mattered. But then the unthinkable happens: the former president of America, one of the guests of honor, is arrested by the International Criminal Court upon arrival in The Hague.

The reaction from Washington follows swiftly. The American Service-Members' Protection Act is activated, a law protecting Americans from prosecution by the Criminal Court. An unprecedented diplomatic uproar ensues. The Criminal Court refuses to withdraw charges, even in the face of imminent invasion.
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In response to the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002, America passed the "American Service Members' Protection Act. This law gives the U.S. president the right to use “all means necessary and appropriate” to free a U.S. citizen or ally when indicted by the Criminal Court. The law was popularly nicknamed “The Hague Invasion Act.”

The Hague calls itself 'the international city of peace and justice'. In Operation Hellfire, writers Joeri Heegstra and Max Wind pose the question: how far is the Netherlands willing to go to live up to those ideals?

Eric de Vroedt about Operation Hellfire:

'In 2024, Joeri Heegstra and Max Wind wrote Exit Poll for Het Nationale Theater, a lightning-fast, funny political thriller about the elections. Now they turn their gaze to international law. How fair is it really? Does law work equally well for everyone? Just when the international world order seems to be faltering, it's good to ask these questions.'

Credits

text Joeri Heegstra & Max Wind
directed by Eric de Vroedt
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cast Soumaya Ahouaoui, Tamar van den Dop, Hein van der Heijden, Yamill Jones, Yela de Koning, Rick Paul van Mulligen, Gustav Borreman, e.a.