The Father - Marieke&Sophia

‘De Vader’ departs from the drama of the same name by August Strindberg (1887). In the original plot, Adolf, father of the house and professional soldier, ends up in a deep crisis after his wife suggests that he might not be the real father of their child. What does the patriarch still represent if he has no power over his own flesh and blood? At the end of the play, Strindberg's hero dies in a straitjacket, mentally ill and broken. Wife and daughter remain triumphantly behind. Together with Anna Franziska Jäger and Rodrigo Batista, Marieke Schraepen and Sophia Bauer rewrite the patriarchal heritage of ‘De Vader’. They take Strindberg's fear of redundancy as a starting point: What would a world without men look like? From a love-hate relationship, they show fluid, different forms of (male) authority. They are inspired by feminist performance art and pornographic clichés from the 1960s-1980s. Next to the skeleton of the original text, they place Strindberg's theoretical pamphlets and diary fragments. They translate these into contemporary forms: video diaries, deepfakes, body rituals. They blow up the self-obsession of the main character and place it in a broader social tendency. Can we still reverse our collective flight inward – to our self, our privacy, our interior – and build a bridge to the other? With their playful, physical language, Marieke&Sophia Strindbergs turns the paranoid men's script upside down. Their (perverse) female fantasy takes over Adolf's violent worldview and changes it from within. In collaboration with art center BUDA. Schouwburg Kortrijk is a proud UiTPAS partner. Save UiTPAS points during the performance. Are you entitled to a ticket at an increased allowance? Keep your UiTPAS at hand and book your ticket online or by phone at 056 23 98 55. You can also come by our ticket counter. Be sure to bring your UiTPAS then too.