As the curtain rises on Moeder, the audience is immediately plunged into an uncertain world, in which the stable identities and topographies that orient our movements and perceptions are held in suspension. Where are we, exactly? And who, out of all these figures, is the mother? Is she even there? Far from being the lead character, the mother seems to dwell at the edge of indecision.
Moeder, the second volume of a trilogy that began with Vader (2014) and will close with Kinderen (2018), is a work on memory that explores the ways in which the fabric of a life is a mosaic or meshwork, collectively composed. It approaches the storehouse of memory and the events whose combination and progression define who we are, not as a museum of the self but as a laboratory used to dig deep into the past.
Peeping Tom will explore the theme of memory – and the figure of the mother – with the same tender and sardonic eye that runs through all of its productions. At once funny and eerie, Moeder is disturbing, yet strangely familiar: we recognise in it the same fascination with the idea that the world is too much for us, the same amused gaze at our faltering attempts to make it fit our notions.
Moeder will premiere at Theater im Pfalzbau (Ludwigshafen, DE) on 29 September 2016.
