With me
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Sun 7 Sep '2513:00 - 17:00Duration 10 minutesTheater cafe
In this theatrical audio installation, a woman calls her lover one last time, to his answering machine: to hear his voice one last time. She talks to him about daily life without him. The poetic monologue forms a portrait of a woman who must say goodbye to her beloved after his sudden death. It is a search for comfort and perspective in deep despair.
On the open dag, the audience enters one by one the personal space of someone who is no longer there. A phone rings, the audience can sit on the seat and listen to the voicemail messages spoken by the widow. Meanwhile, surround plays a soundscape of the sounds you continue to hear when someone is no longer there.
"Dear, The first weeks you were gone, there were incessant people in the house. The radio was on, there was coffee and there was always activity in the kitchen. Now it is quiet."
The idea for this audio installation arose from a personal story: we were both, in different ways, dealing with loss and mourning. We noticed that in the world around us there is little room for that grief. Grieving is something we don't do publicly (anymore), but behind closed curtains. In an increasingly secular society, there seems to be less and less room for rituals that comfort us. We asked ourselves how we can form rituals in modern society that give us direction in grieving. This preliminary study is a first form of this. The audience listens to messages that move between holding on and moving on, between raw pain and resignation, entering not only someone's space but also someone's thoughts and memories.
Credits
Voices Gerard Luijkenaar and Liesbeth Reeser Made possible by Carte Blanche and Parktheater Thanks to Mona Thijs and Vitória Aquino
