The Wetsuitman
2022-2023 | English language premiere
Foreign Affairs | Arcola Theatre
by Freek Mariën | translated by David McKay
Three actors, twenty-eight characters, one true story.
It’s 2015 on the coast of Norway. A retired architect finds a wetsuit, and in it, the remains of a body. The detective unit hits one dead end after another – until another body in an identical wetsuit washes up in the Netherlands.
Starting as a Nordic noir, The Wetsuitman playfully and movingly transforms into an exploration of identity, prejudice and forced migration. As one journalist digs deeper into the story behind the Wetsuitman, it becomes an interrogation of the world in which he was washed up and exactly how that could happen.
This timely and important play by award-winning Belgian playwright Freek Mariën takes us on a journey from Norway, through Europe, and to Syria, revealing the devastating truth behind one family’s loss.
The Demons of Jerusalem
2021 | Premiere
by Gur Arie Piepskovitz | directed by Avihud Tidhar
“How many people do you know around here that exchange poems by a gay orthodox Jewish Dutch guy instead of nude pics on a men4men forum?”
The Demons of Jerusalem is a psychological drama, shifting between three time periods but staying in one location: the area of Jerusalem where Jacob Israel De Haan was murdered. De Haan (1881-1924) was a poet, author, journalist and lawyer, whose death was arguably the first politicised murder in the history of Israel.
The play explores the conflict between primordial desire and a longing for purity and holiness. De Haan’s story is one of integrating several identities; an ongoing journey of reconciling differing beliefs and contradictions within ourselves. As the characters search for answers within one another, we are led to question and unravel the masculinities of their very different worlds.