Primeval and Other Times
Guy Cassiers, together with Hotel Modern and 11 actors from the ensemble, creates the world of Primeval and Other Times: in models and live on several video screens, life in the village and the surrounding nature is created. The result is an impressive living painting that does justice to the layered world of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk's novel.
Run time 180 minutes, incl. intermission
Genre Theatre
Language Dutch
Surtitles English, Thu 11 & 18 Dec
Primeval and Other Times
Olga Tokarczuk ingeniously depicts life in a Polish village, where generations of inhabitants struggle with war, communism, and modernization. You follow how different generations build families, construct homes, and try to survive amid historical and natural forces. Tokarczuk’s story, full of compassion and gentleness, shows how people, animals, trees, and spirits are all part of a cycle of birth, growth, and decay.
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Director Guy Cassiers is known for his productions in which video plays a major role and in which actors alternate between performing and narrating. At ITA, he previously directed Hamlet versus Hamlet (by Tom Lanoye), The Kindly Ones (after Jonathan Littell), May We Be Forgiven (after A.M. Homes), and Lehman Trilogy (by Stefano Massini).
Hotel Modern, a Rotterdam-based collective, is internationally acclaimed for their productions that depict major historical events using live video, miniature sets, and puppets.
Guy Cassiers on Primeval and Other Times
"From a small Polish village, we follow the important events that shaped Europe in the 20th century. In a tender and disarming way, Olga Tokarczuk shows a swarm of voices searching for higher meanings in their harsh existence. The characters form a close-knit community but are driven apart by a violent history.
Tokarczuk sketches the world as a living, ceaselessly changing entity before our eyes, of which humans are a small but at the same time powerful part. Thus, in an almost fairy-tale manner, she makes us look afresh, through the eyes of some 20 villagers, at our current situation and our responsibility in it as human beings."
Reviews
De Volkskrant
"Ntianu Stuger and Maarten Heijmans portray these characters with lightness, compassion and precision, and contrast all the violence of war with the immeasurable power of humanity."
Theaterkrant (Critic’s Choice)
"Rarely have I seen such a large ensemble with so many great actors so humble and touchable."
8weekly
"This collaboration between ITA Ensemble and Hotel Modern results in spectacular, eye-catching and unique theatre."
Digital Brochure
Read more about the production's author, direction, music, scenography and costumes in our digital brochure.
Guy Cassiers (born in Antwerp, 1960) is considered one of Europe’s top theatre-makers. His idiosyncratic theatrical idiom in which he successfully marries visual technology with a passion for literature is highly esteemed within Belgium and throughout the world. He has been artistic director of Toneelhuis from 2006 - 2022.
In season 23|24 his direction of Primeval and Other Times (Olga Tokarczuk) will premiere at ITA and his direction of Lehman Trilogy will be reprised.
Hotel Moedern
Hotel Modern creates theatre performances in which maquette art, puppetry, drama and music are combined into intense visual stories. The artistic core is formed by Pauline Kalker, Arlène Hoornweg and Herman Helle. Scale models play a major role in their theatrical language: complete miniature worlds are built on stage, populated by hundreds of characters. With mini cameras, the players film scenes in these worlds, the images are projected life-size and soundtracked live by a composer. This working method offers unprecedented possibilities: Hotel Modern brings entire cities, spaceships and trench wars into the theatre. The imagery is evocative: a sprig of parsley becomes a tree, it rains from a plant sprayer, planets in an infinite universe are made of potatoes. Watching a performance of Hotel Modern is like watching an animated film and the making-of of the film at the same time. The audience sees how the illusion is created and becomes totally immersed in it. Filmed and projected, the images become hyper-realistic.
Credits
by Olga Tokarczuk
directed by Guy Cassiers
adaptation Peter van Kraaij
translation Karol Lesman
dramaturgy Peter van Kraaij
imagery and live animation Hotel Modern
models Herman Helle
light design Fabiana Piccioli
video design Bram Delafonteyne
sound design Jeroen Kenens
costumes Tim van Steenbergen
assistant director Tessa Kortmulder
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private producers Dirk Raes and Helga Lasschuijt, Rob and Marijke van Oordt, and Hans Sauerwein
coproducer Hotel Modern
