On repeat

Human beings stumble from one crisis into the next—it is a permanent crisis, a life crisis. How did it ever come to this? How could this human being become such a catastrophe—for… everything!? What is there to hold on to? Humans invent coping strategies and begin to dig, digging ever deeper. In doing so, they come across fragments of memories thousands of years old; eras overlap. Again and again, they encounter themselves:

“Just what I needed… Every time I turn over a stone, I see my own face.”

In the devised production On Repeat by Zarah Bracht, created in collaboration with the ensemble, we travel through time—into a history before history was told. Which attitudes and patterns of action from the past are embedded in this human being? What do they want to let go of, and what offers hope?

Zarah Bracht (born 1990, Hamburg) is a freelance director of devised theatre working in the Netherlands. Inspired by Dutch mime and Flemish dance theatre, she developed her directorial style there, which is based on image and movement. In her work, she explores emotions and drives that lurk beneath the surface of social debates and translates them into magical-realist images and absurdly comic situations.

Liesje Knobel (born 1984) works as a theatre maker, scenographer, and dramaturg. She studied Theatre Studies at the University of Amsterdam and Scenography at the Theatre School of Amsterdam. Together with designer Sanne Lips, she forms the visual arts collective LIPS&KNOBEL. In their site-specific performances, installations, and visual art, they combine politics, visual art, and joy. As a designer, she has worked, among others, with Liesbeth Coltof and Lennart Monaster; as a director, with Rieks Swarte. She has been collaborating with Zarah Bracht since 2015.

Premiere: April 22, 2023
Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes

On Repeat is a co-production with Theater Rotterdam.