The Wall
The unnamed narrator of The Wall is a middle-aged woman who, one morning during a weekend at a friends' country house in the Austrian Alps, concludes that she is all alone. She sets out to investigate and, while walking in the mountains, comes across an impenetrable glass wall, which completely isolates her from the rest of the world. Through the glass, she sees a farmer in the distance, standing in the familiar landscape as if petrified. All the humans seem to have perished; nature is otherwise untouched. Her friends' dog, Luchs, returns from the village alone. In the days following her discovery, it slowly dawns on her that she is the only survivor and will have to learn to fend for herself in these hopeless conditions. A cat and a cow join her and, together with Luchs, form her new family.
Run time tba
Genre Theatre
Language Dutch
Surtitles English, Thu, March 13 & 20 and April 17 & 24
Public rehearsal Wed, March 5
In Gesprek Fri, March 21 and April 18 & 25
Opening night Sun, March 9
The Wall
The book is the account of her writings, which she began after two and a half years in complete isolation in the hopes of keeping her language and thinking skills intact. Carefully chronicling her struggle for survival and caring for animals and nature are what keep her alive. By allowing the book to be the record and thus also a retrospective of the past two and a half years, an ingenious interplay with time is created.
Marlen Haushofer wrote The Wall in 1963, in the midst of the Cold War, a period of political paranoia and nuclear threat. The power of this post-apocalyptic novel lies in its intimate description of the symbiotic coexistence of humans and animals. Without any trace of sentimentality, Haushofer manages to convey that empathy and ethics are what keep the narrator alive. Her interaction with animals and her need to take good care of them give meaning to her existence. Hunting, killing, skinning, and butchering are a necessary evil for the narrator. She does it reluctantly and only when she runs out of plant-based foods. Yet besides a plea for compassion for the world around us, The Wall is also a feminine robinsonade, the story of the rebirth of a woman who reinvents herself free of societal restrictions and gender roles.
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“If time exists only in my head, and I'm the last human being, it will end with my death. The thought cheers me. I may be in a position to murder time. The big net will tear and fall, with its sad contents, into oblivion. I'm owed some gratitude, but no one after my death will know I murdered time.”
Eline Arbo about The Wall
“What would you do if you found yourself in a situation like that of the woman in The Wall, having to start all over again? That is a wondrous question, because we are not at all prepared for something like that. Our relationship with the natural world has changed too much for that. The woman in the book is a survivor, she exudes incredible strength. At the same time, it is precisely her gentle relationship with nature – the earth and the living beings around her – that makes the book so wonderful. Caring for other life gives her existence meaning in a hopeless world. It is a story about the relationship between humans and nature, about empathy and caring for another. I grew up in northern Norway, where the reliance on and connection with nature is much stronger than here in the Netherlands. I sometimes fear losing my relationship with nature altogether. The Wall challenges us to stop putting humans at the centre of the world, but instead see them as just one part of a bigger whole.”
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) and The Wall (Marlen Haushofer); 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.
Author
Marlen Haushofer
Marlen Haushofer (1920-1970) was an Austrian writer. Her poignant portraits of women trying to free themselves from the chains of a patriarchal society have brought her back into the limelight in recent years. In The Loft, as well as in her masterpiece The Wall, she portrays their resilience and their ability to escape society's imposed roles thanks to their imagination. Along with Ingeborg Bachmann and Elfriede Jelinek, Marlen Haushofer is among the best that Austrian literature has to offer us.
In Gesprek
After the performance, come and think, listen and chat at In Gesprek. We invite a guest to further explore the themes of The Wall 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.
Credits
by Marlen Haushofer
director Eline Arbo
translator Ria van Hengel
dramaturgy Peter Van Kraaij
sound design Thijs van Vuure
costume design Eline Arbo
lighting design Varja Klosse
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private producer Hans Sauerwein, Remke Schermer, Paula and Willem van der Schoot
Ivo van Hove adapted Who Killed My Father, by internationally acclaimed writer Édouard Louis, for the stage. Van Hove turned the very outspoken book into a monologue, especially for Hans Kesting.
