Benefit of the doubt

In Voordeel van de twijfel, Het nieuwstedelijk follows a young investigative journalist who stumbles upon a large fraud web in which politics and business are closely intertwined. What starts as a professional search for the truth soon grows into a personal and dangerous game in which trust becomes increasingly difficult. The deeper he digs, the more the boundaries between facts and manipulation blur. Even within his own editorial staff, doubt grows, until his editor-in-chief refuses to publish the story. The journalist decides to continue it alone and publishes anonymously online, but in doing so comes closer and closer to threats and intimidation. The performance responds to an era in which “post-truth” and alternative facts color the debate, and in which doubt is deliberately used to undermine truth. This creates a field of tension between credibility, power, and the question of who can still be trusted. With this series of theatrical episodes, Stijn Devillé builds a thriller-like story that slowly unfolds like a political crime series on stage, in which the tension between public and private identity is central. Over Het nieuwstedelijk Het nieuwstedelijk makes contemporary theater at the intersection of text, music, and image. The company often starts from social themes and works in layered narrative forms that combine tension and topicality.