The year of cancer
Luk Perceval stripped the book of its Amsterdam and early-1970s context. Only the very core remained: a woman who can’t commit because the realization of decay hangs around her life like a veil. A man who can’t save her because he unjustly interprets her cry for love as a rejection.
Run time 110 minutes
Genre Theater
Language Dutch
The year of cancer
The year of cancer (Het jaar van de kreeft) is about a troublesome relationship. The performance is a sequence of absurd, tragicomic and physically exhausting scenes between two desperate people who can neither live with nor without each other. Both lovers are caught in an inescapable spiral of intimacy and detachment, pride and devotion, life and death. A story without romance, about two people who experience love as a fate and a mission.
Claus’s novel is a rollercoaster. In short chapters, he draws a portrait of two people who can neither live with nor without each other. In provocative, moving and poetic scenes, we witness the distress caused by a great passion. Claus succeeds in turning a story that would have generated a very bad novel in the hands of lesser authors into an existential drama about angst and a drive towards death. Balancing between pathos and humor, he creates two unforgettable characters in a love story that makes sense in all ages.
-|-
In a physically exhausting performance, Maria Kraakman and Gijs Scholten van Aschat play and dance the ecstasy of being in love, as well as the defensive fights after the breakup. The forced nature of the relationship echoes in the piano music, composed and performed live by Jeroen van Veen. It propels the two lovers in a danse macabre towards the conclusion, where neither of them is willing to definitively herald the end.
REVIEWS
NRC
‘The depiction of attraction and explorative erotic actions between this man and woman during the opening scenes is wondrously beautiful. From that moment, you know that The year of the cancer, the stage adaptation of the novel by Hugo Claus, will be a treat. Light as a feather, striking and fluent, in the steady hands of director Luk Perceval. He has an idea, a daring idea: not to imitate, but to transform; to honour the spirit, the soul of the work of another genius by replacing words with the beauty of the body. That operation has been perfectly successful.’
de Telegraaf
‘Maria Kraakman and Gijs Scholten van Aschat have succeeded in mastering this different, excessively physical style of acting. They draw you along in their raw, intense, but above all vulnerable game of attraction and rejection. In addition, there is a magnificent friction between their destructive behaviour and the soft, sweet melodies by pianist Jeroen van Veen.’
Trouw
'It is fascinating to see two of the best Dutch text performers dive into their roles in such a shamelessly physical way. Especially Kraakman does a phenomenal job portraying a confused, layered and elusive character that we can certainly understand emotionally. Her lover has to keep up with her quicksilver body and emotions, but turns out not to be able to. This results in one of the most beautiful images during the entire performance: he is clumsily trying to inflate a broken sex doll, while she is madly riding around in circles on a children’s bicycle to get his attention. An image with a meaning you can’t quite express in words, but you can almost physically feel it pull on your heartstrings.’
De Groene Amsterdammer
‘Perceval challenged his actors to a kind of theatrical athletics. Gijs Scholten van Aschat and Maria Kraakman are pulling out all the stops when it comes to their great acting talent. They show the very best of themselves.’
de Volkskrant
‘An unsurpassed idea, to capture this book in a danse macabre.’
PROGRAM BROCHURE
Read more about the production's direction and scenography in our digital brochure.
GO BEHIND THE SCENES
Luk Perceval (Lommel, 1957) is a Flemish actor and director.
In season 22|23 his direction of The Year of Cancer will be reprised.
CREDITS
author Hugo Claus
director Luk Perceval
adaptation Peter van Kraaij, Luk Perceval
dramaturgy Peter van Kraaij
scenographer Katrin Brack
light design Mark Van Denesse
music Jeroen van Veen
choreographer Ted Stoffer
costumes Annelies Vanlaere-|-
private producer Van Meeuwen Kan Fonds, Mies en Jaap Kamp
with Maria Kraakman, Gijs Scholten van Aschat
assistant director Tatiana Pratley, Belle de Wit
assistant scenography Ramón Huijbrechts
casting advice Hans Kemna
photography Sanne Peper
special thanks to Macbike, Claartje Chajes, Joukje de Boer, Martha Mojet