Sunken Red

Just three years old when he, his family, and thousands of other Dutch citizens were interned in a Japanese prison camp, Dutch writer Jeroen Brouwers witnessed atrocities that robbed him of his innocence. Channeling his experiences into the terse, evocative prose of his critically-acclaimed autobiography Sunken Red, Brouwers captured the essence of a struggle that continued long after his incarceration–and one that finds new life on stage in a brilliantly adapted, soul-barring soliloquy directed by Guy Cassiers.

Renowned for his adaptations of Proust, Gogol, and Tolstoy, Cassiers treatment of Brouwers’ text is unsentimental, raw, and real, surging and sighing in the masterful hands of actor Dirk Roofthooft, whose disjointed speech and gestures betray a man desperate to escape his past. As live-feed video projections flicker on his face like recollections erupting in the mind, we are left to wonder darkly, yet with hope: are we–or are we not–more than what we remember?