Het Zuidelijk Toneel creates theatre. Artistic director Piet Menu and a diverse group of theater makers from the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium) have built an open, engaging and multifaceted theater company. The best creators under one roof. Het Zuidelijk Toneel and its makers are bound by an inherent drive to enter into dialogue with the audience. Challenging, evocative. Our work takes place in the real world, and the real world is part of our art making process. Our central theme: connection to The Other and how we see ourselves within that reflection. Het Zuidelijk Toneel has been based in Tilburg since 2010. Het Zuidelijk Toneel is a national theatre company with a focus on the Brabant Region of the Netherlands.
Shut Up and Play with Me
Playing, everyone can do it, but few people actually do. Do we still recognize the potential for play? Is it a proof of maturity to suppress our need to play or because there is not a penny to be made from it? What if we take off the brakes and plunge into selfless play?
Two players enter the floor: Joep van der Geest and Louis van der Waal. They survey the playing field and get ready for the game. Passionately, they plunge into one game after another. They challenge each other and are competitive as hell. There will be laughing, dying and crying. The logic of the game is only intuitively imitable and a riddle you want to solve as an audience.
"We don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw.
Shut Up and Play with Me is an ode to the playing man, for anyone who has ever played, now or long ago. Inspired by Homo Ludens by cultural historian Johan Huizinga.