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An absurd whodunit

Waiting and Other Heroic Acts

Freek Mariën

Four guards are standing in front of a high wall. They are waiting and keeping watch, without knowing why or for how long. Behind the wall is a state secret and everything is suspect, everyone a potential enemy of the state. ‘We see everything,’ they boast.

An anarchic and provocative piece, with an inimitable storyline, so extraordinary it cannot really be compared to any other plays.
Toneelschrijfprijs 2015 jury

In ‘Waiting and Other Heroic Acts’ the guards barely move a muscle in their sacred mission to guard the wall. They wait, they eat, they patrol and above all: they have no fear. But everything changes when one of them suddenly disappears and disrupts their unshakable rhythm. Routines that were once meaningful now lose all sense. The unexpected disappearance gets them thinking: why are we keeping watch? And above all: what’s behind the Wall? When their rigid choreography breaks down, the guards rediscover their personalities and their contact with one another.

‘Waiting and Other Heroic Acts’ is an absurd detective that, despite its humour, does not shun the major themes: the individual against the state, freedom versus impersonal authority and missing someone you took for granted.

A text like a burst of gunfire. Sometimes loud, sometimes overwhelming, sometimes chillingly silent. Funny, yet extremely stylised. A text like a choreography.
KAAS&KAPPES-prijs jury
A delightfully absurdist play – mild and occasionally heady. The performance and the absurd logic of text and movements can be strangely abstract.
De Bond