Out of order. Canceled. Kapot. Broken. Come back later. Or never.
We don’t mind. We don’t care. We are busy being who we are. Or trying to figure out who we are.
It’s all messy here. It’s loud. It's too much. It’s too little. It’s… Wait.
Let’s start from the beginning.
Red drapes are lying on the stage.
Two arms emerge under it, followed by a head: the stage giving birth to Yunus.
Dayna hands him a bağlama. This is the first action that was done by a woman to primarily support a male figure on stage. There are more to come. But we will get there.
Seeing Yunus standing up on the red drape ground, and holding his bağlama bring tears to my eyes.
Knowing that this young man was born and raised in the Kurdish area of Turkey and consequently had to be familiar with war, injustice, and cruelty since he was a child, turns the red drapes into a sea of blood in my mind’s eye. I shed a tear.
A soft melody comes out of his baglama. It accompanies Christopher van der Meer’s mind-tickling beats. Then slowly but surely, the floor below Yunus’ feet changes as Ro and Dayna collect the drapes and direct him slowly to the side of the stage.
The scenery changed for us. The scenery changed for Yunus.
He is not standing in the middle of the stage anymore, but sitting at the side: Looking, watching as the new floor is being established, and it's black.
It reminds me of rich, black soil. Anything can happen now.
Dayna comes in. She looks humble and graceful with two braids falling on her shoulders. If Mother Nature had a personified look, she wouldn’t look so different, I think to myself. Dayna, holding a bucket full of soil and spilling it on the floor, draws a circle in the middle of the stage. What is going to blossom in this circle of potential, I ask myself, and in a second emerge two young men: Yusuf and Bilal.
They stand at the opposite sides of the circle, their upper bodies are naked. Tension is hanging in the air as they stare at each other with daring eyes.
Both start painting their bodies with mud. Is this going to be a fight?
They assess each other's speed and strength.
I don’t know the rules of the game that they are playing.
But I’m at the edge of my seat. I’m living for it.
This is the first moment that ‘Out of Order’ gives me a hint that I won’t be needing the rational side of my psyche. It’s all about the images and heightened emotions here.
Love and hate, safety and fear melting into each other in this soup of masculinity, as one tries to establish dominance over the other: “The Tragedy of men,” I murmur.
This dance of coming together and falling apart brings a question to my mind:
Are they brothers growing up, or lovers who can’t fall apart?
Again, there is no clear-cut answer. Slowly, I’m liking this ambiguous structure.
Each image is open to many interpretations.
If you search for a meaning, you find it in your psyche. It’s not fixed. It’s not given.
Yusuf and Bilal leave and the floor changes once again.
This constant change of ground is nerve-racking.
It’s as if these young people are trying to establish themselves in the world, and once they understand the rules, when they are free and safe, someone pulls the rug out from under their feet, so they have to start once again. Like the mouse and the cat, it’s an endless game of chase.
This ever-changing ground becomes visible once again during Christopher’s solo.
A young man standing on the stage in his underwear, wearing an Ajax uniform on his back, and red pumps on his feet. The contrast could be humorous, but it’s almost heartbreaking when you see him trying to stand on a platform made out of metal bars. It doesn’t look safe, and it doesn’t look sustainable. Then a ‘monster’ appears and starts getting the bars below his feet one by one and shaking his ground. You root for Christopher to keep dancing. But you know the end is near for him, and soon when there is only one bar, he falls.
Another layer of the floor goes away, this time it rises to the ceiling. And now the stage is naked.
We arrived at the very core.
All the skins we shed throughout the performance brought us to our most inner self where there is unity and joy.
This is for the first time, all the male players are on stage doing a choreographed dance altogether yet their individual selves stay visible and poignant.
I lost track. I lost the order.
But there are two more scenes that I want to talk about before we both go back to our lives.
First, the apple juggling…
My French is even worse than my Dutch. So I don’t know what Christopher was saying, but I don’t really need to. Because I know who he is. He is the showman, the trickster, the crying clown.
I know that he needs juggling, this futile action to prove that even though other parts of his life are falling apart, he can always count on his talent, and his act to work out.
When the ground keeps shaking and people are coming into your life and leaving, as an artist, you can always come back to your craft. I am familiar with that. But it’s not that easy though.
You watch him juggling the apple in his hands while wearing a coat that is inside out. And as if this act of juggling is not enough, at the same time he starts taking his clothes off, meanwhile, taking bites from the apple.
The tragedy of the artist: always pushing your limits to go a step further. Your whole sense of worth depends on how well you are doing your craft. I’m watching a fight between an artist and his art. It’s funny and heartbreaking at the same time.
I cannot finish this text without talking about ‘the eyes.’
There are a few TV screens scattered around the stage. All have the same image of a moving eye, staring at us - the audience.
Throughout the performance, I'm being reminded that as I'm watching these young people pouring their hearts out and interpreting their stories according to my past and my psyche, I, too, am being watched. It’s disturbing. It’s flattering. Nevertheless, it is the reality.
This brings me to the last scene that I want to talk about: when all the male players are on the stage and their eyes are closed, their hands moving as if they are in a dream, all the while murmuring. Are they repeating the motions that they had done during the performance? I’d say so. Here it is again; the craft and the artist. As we watch them breaking down each sequence into small movements, the veil of the magic on art is being lifted. In the end, everything I saw on the stage, all the drama and heightened emotions have their roots in a strict structure. Nothing is real. Everything is part of a play.
Then Yunus walks in and starts performing a Turkish text to these sleeping bodies. They don’t hear him, it’s obvious. Everyone is busy with themselves. Meanwhile, Yunus tries to be heard, talking to one person and then the other. He is an outsider trying to find his way in, a young man hungry to tell his story, wanting to be heard.
Oh, before we finish, I said at the beginning that we would get back to the roles of the women, right?
Even though Asena took the stage by performing a text to the microphone and I barely could take my eyes off her, it felt more like a supportive role than a solo. Whereas Dayna was taking care of everyone; giving them props, and playing a little drum. In a chaotic environment where men were trying to connect with one another and themselves (sometimes with force sometimes with compassion), women framed it all. Their presence was soft, but it was essential.
‘Out of Order’ is a performance with no linear dramatic structure. It is a performance full of chaos and packed with emotions and visually striking scenes. As I am leaving the theatre I feel emotionally tired but at the same time energized: tired, because I felt the crushing search the youngsters have to go for meaning and identity, deep inside me. Energized because their performance reminded me of what being alive really means at its very core. Because even though the ground beneath my feet will keep changing, there is life in action. And I'd rather be in a restless search than being planted in a safe but dead ground. What about you?