The Meeting
Julie Cafmeyer
The performance The Meeting stems from the text Life is but a dream, published by Julie Cafmeyer in March ‘24. It tells a story about power relations between a woman and a theatre director in the fictional theatre house De Rotonde. In reality, this publication effectively caused a theatre director to be dismissed from his job.
The Meeting is the sequel to this publication, staging a meeting that never happened. Between the theatre director, Julie, the lackey, the reporting desk and the chairman of the board of directors. Items on the agenda include: masculinity pacts, eroticism, toxic behaviour, love, burnout, fiction and revenge goddesses.
If everyone was seemingly under hypnosis during the moment of transgressive behaviour, this performance wants to talk about waking up. About the moment of resisting, of finally being able to say no. Where does this newfound awakening take us? Will we all wake up in the next dream?
“Writing the essay has liberated me, in the sense that I no longer feel blocked. I can now write a theatre text that transcends my personal struggles but also create a situation in which I can expand on the deeper motivations of the other characters. I am ready to create total chaos around the theme of transgressive behaviour – a chaos that is funny, awkward, naughty, cruel, touching and tender. Characters who strengthen, weaken, destabilize, question, help, avenge, love each other.”
In Dutch