The Wall
βIn the fascinating monologue The Wall, you see what happens when humanity can only rely on nature.β β de Volkskrant β
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A middle-aged woman spends a few days at a friends' game lodge in the Alps. When the befriended couple has not returned home one night, she, accompanied by their dog Luchs, goes in search of them. In the mountains, she encounters an invisible, impenetrable wall that completely isolates her from the rest of the world. Gradually, it dawns on her that she may be the sole survivor of an unexplained disaster. Together with Luchs, a cat and a cow, she faces the fight for survival and becomes more and more part of the inhospitable nature around her.
The Wall is the story of a forced rebirth and a compelling plea for care and compassion towards all life.
Run time 100 minutes
Genre Theatre
Language Dutch
Surtitles English, Thu, August 21 & 28 and Thu, April 16 & 23
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.
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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 story of the rebirth of a woman who reinvents herself free of societal restrictions and gender roles.
βIf 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.β
ELINE ARBO ABOUT THE WALL
βWhat 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 β the earth and the living beings around her β 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.β
IN THE PRESS
Trouw
βThe atmosphere created by Arbo and Nietvelt is powerful, almost intoxicating.β
de Volkskrant
βFog, snow, fire and thunder are visualised with spectacular light and sound effects.β
Het Parool
βThe Wall is impressiveβ
NRC
βActress Nietvelt delivers first-class acting performanceβ
Theaterkrant
βDepleting soil forces Chris Nietvelt into powerful earthbound play.β
ZUBB
βThis makes The Wall not only a strong plea for gender equality, but also an illustration of how we as human beings manage to survive when we find ourselves in a seemingly hopeless situation.β
PROGRAM BROCHURE
Read more about the story, the music and the creative team of The Wall in our digital brochure.
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 (Γdouard 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.
Credits
by Marlen Haushofer
directed by Eline Arbo
adaptation Eline Arbo, Peter van Kraaij
composition and musical design Thijs van Vuure
translation Ria van Hengel
dramaturgy Peter van Kraaij
stage design Eline Arbo, Django Walon
lighting design Dennis van Scheppingen
costume design Eline Arbo, Wim van Vliet
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private producer Hans Sauerwein, Remke Schermer, Paula and Willem van der Schoot
this production is supported by Ammodo
This production is supported by
