Like soap bubbles, André (Hans Croiset) experiences his memories of the past. They burst into thin air, disappearing into a larger perspective: “What used to be important are now anecdotes.”
At the start of the performance, an enormous photo of Anne Wil Blankers lovingly sitting on Croiset’s lap fills the theater frame. The photo was taken more than thirty years ago: it is wonderful to be on the playing floor a little later – as in a flash forward – to see how these stage stars have aged. Their loving interplay forms the beating heart of an otherwise rather ramshackle evening of theater.
Also read: Hans Croiset on acting: ‘Did I say that sentence correctly?’
The eye of the storm is a play by Florian Zeller, who previously impressed with the beautiful la pere, about a demented father. That performance was shown in Dutch theaters four years ago, also with Hans Croiset, who rightly received a Louis d’Or for it. The play was made into a film last year as The Father (in Zeller’s own direction), starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman in the lead roles.
The eye of the storm does not elaborate on the same theme in an entertaining way: the confusion that old age brings with it is again made theatrical in various ways. Again, Zeller is playing a game with the reliability of what we see.
More than in la pere it feels like a gimmick, because the framing story has hardly anything going on. Where the helplessness of father and daughter in la pere causes a gripping internal and mutual struggle, continues The eye of the storm a harmless exercise. In all the confusion over the plot, Zeller doesn’t get around to creating richly varied, layered characters.
The most beautiful are the subdued scenes of Blankers and Croiset. For example in the moving epilogue, in which they sit silently on a bench: two beautiful stage icons in a performance that bursts like a soap bubble.
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