Reading Room 3

Staged reading (EN)

Ruth Bruyneel – DEVICKY. (wax the pain away)

BIO:

Ruth Bruyneel is an actor, theater artist, and theater instructor. In her work, she explores the relationship between body, language, and music. She often starts with small, personal stories, which she combines with an unconventional style of writing and acting. As a teacher, she works at hetpaleis, Kunsthumaniora Brussels and BLOC2030.

In 2019, she founded her own theater collective, Meurman & de Rudy, together with Bas Van den Bogaert. The collective creates alternative musicals—almost operas set to beats. Visually striking theater with an edge, baroque in form, grotesque in performance. Small, everyday stories presented in a grand, nonsacred setting.

She was in residence at Zuidpool to work the text for Devicky. The play was nominated for the 2021 Roel Verniers Prize and won the 2023 De Troffel Award at Festival Cement.

SYNOPSIS:

There’s that salon. That waxing salon. And there’s her. The one and only Vicky. She isn’t just one person. She’s many. She stirs the wax. She spreads it, sticks it on, rips it off, briefly eases the pain with a puff of air, and makes adjustments. She does it well. Thoroughly. That’s who she is. She warms herself against her clients’ skin. She only waxes backsides. Her clients’ skin and hair give her just enough to keep going. She thinks she’s malleable. Don’t we all think that? She misses her mom. She has a hole that she hides under her dress.

DEVICKY. (wax the pain away) tells the story of Vicky, a young woman who runs a hair removal salon and misses her mother. Together with her colleagues, Vicky questions what kind of woman she is and wants to be. The salon serves as a symbolic setting for questions about female images, self-love, and body ideals.

Translator: Paul Evans

Annet Bremen – F*CK LOLITA

BIO:

Annet Bremen (°1986) initially studied Dutch, but ultimately found the language too beautiful to merely observe from the sidelines. Therefore, after obtaining her Bachelor’s degree from Leiden University in 2007, she chose to pursue playwriting (Writing for Performance) at the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, where she graduated in 2011.

Annet writes for theatre, audio, and occasionally poetry, for organizations such as Het Laagland, AVROTROS, and Querido’s Poëziespektakel. In addition, she teaches creative writing at Parnassos (Utrecht University) and Buitenkunst, among others. Her work has been selected for Interplay Europe and nominated for the Dioraphte Stimuleringsprijs, Verse Tekst, the Poetry Prize of the City of Ostend, the Prix Europa, and the Toneelschrijfprijs. She won the Gouden Lijst and the GermanDutch youth theatre playwriting prize Kaas&Kappes.

At the Shakespeare Is Dead festival, she will also deliver the State of the Playwright address.

SYNOPSIS:

For decades, Lolita has been portrayed as a romanticized sex object and countless versions of her story have emerged. For director Silke van Kamp & Het Zuidelijk Toneel Annet Bremen turns Nabokov’s literary classic after 70 years radically inside out and gives in F*CK LOLITA the story a new form from the female perspective. Lolita steps out of the cage of the sex object and reclaims her story and her body. Not as a victim of abuse, but as someone who breaks free from the grip of the male perspective.

F*CK LOLITA is a whimsical, sensual, and complex duet between Lolita and Humbert Humbert. Lolita reclaims her artwork: about herself, as herself.

Translator: Michele Hutchison