De wetten

International Theater Amsterdam | Eline Arbo
do 13 nov '25 and Fri 14 Nov '25
Seven meetings, one me
Thu 13 nov '25
and
Fri 14 Nov '25

Who are you without the other? In De wetten, based on the book by Connie Palmen, director Eline Arbo takes you into the story of a woman in search of herself.

In 1980s Amsterdam, we meet the young philosophy student Marie who craves knowledge and a meaningful life. For seven years, we watch with her during seven encounters that shape her life and personality.

In De wetten we follow Marie's encounters with seven defining figures in her young life: the astrologer, the epileptic, the philosopher, the priest, the physicist, the artist and the psychiatrist. Through these encounters, she learns about different ways of looking at people and personalities. We check how she grows into authorship in a high-profile way and gives meaning to her life, thanks to and in spite of these encounters.

The media about De wetten
"Eline Arbo and the ITA Ensemble devotedly and dynamically portray the pain of thinking that leads to loneliness." (Theaterkrant)

“A magnificent and compelling play adaptation of the classic.”

Trouw

About Connie Palmen
Connie Palmen (1955) is one of the most celebrated Dutch writers. In 1991 she debuted with De wetten, a bildungsroman about a young woman who storms the world and eventually finds her true calling in the seclusion of writing. Within a year, it sold more than 400,000 copies. With her autobiographical novels The Friendship, I.M., Entirely Yours, Lucifer and You Say It, she garnered international success and captured a large audience. Her essays were collected in 2017 in The Drama of Dependency.

Connie Palmen questions the idea that a human being has a pure and self-contained "I" with its own fixed meaning. According to her, we cannot understand ourselves in isolation from others and obtain meaning only through the stories told about us. This entails a certain dependency, which she tries to fathom and explore in her work. By creating fiction, she gives form to this dependency and tries to come to grips with the way stories define our identity.

Credits

Directed by Eline Arbo Composition and live music Thijs van Vuure Adaptation Eline Arbo and Peter Van Kraaij Dramaturgy Peter Van Kraaij Scenography Roel Van Berckelaer Lighting design Varja Klosse Costumes Wojciech Dziedzic Sound design Dennis Slot

 

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