WAY OUT

About the show:

‘Psychoses can profoundly shape a life. They carried me into corners of my mind I had never visited before. In this solo performance, I seek out the moments when my delusion triumphed over reality – and when reality pushed back.’

A man returns to the barren room that was once his prison, yet also the protective boundary for his drifting mind. Entering the room means stepping back into the darkness, the fear‑ridden fantasies, the ecstatic frenzy, and the delusions of grandeur.

In pared-back, physical scenes with few words, Van der Laan lets his body remember what it was like. The audience becomes his intimate witness, yet it shifts along with his changing inner world. It becomes the doctor checking on him, the brother dropping by, or the intruder who has displaced his belongings.

Bio:

Paul van der Laan makes theater, acts, and creates visual art.

‘Making something out of nothing is what I love most.
I have an idea singing somewhere in my head, and my body turns it into something tangible in the form of an image, a text, or a scene. I have to visualize it. Otherwise, it remains just an idea.

But I experience this too when I make soup. Ten raw things, separate from one another, suddenly become something I can eat. Amazing, isn’t it? Acting, creating visual art, writing—they are the same as that soup. It can become art if you know how you want to cook.’ – Paul van der Laan

Credits:

Idea and performance: Paul van der Laan
Coaching: Marijn van der Jagt
Light and sound: Manuel Boutreur