Een mond vol zand
Synopsis
What if you found your husband, a war correspondent who vanished without a trace, in the middle of a desert: emaciated, disoriented, feral and… with another woman?
Unable to accept that she may never see him again, a desperate young pregnant woman decides to go to Afghanistan to search for her husband. The man she finds is traumatised and almost unrecognisably changed. He does not recognize her. She has no choice but to rely on the Afghan woman who has been caring for him — the one person he allows to come close and touch him. The Western woman tries everything she can to reconnect with her husband and discover what has happened to him.
How long do you hold on to someone? And when is it better, out of love, to let someone go?
'Een mond vol zand' is Via Berlin’s first production (Orkater/De Nieuwkomers): whispering plastic, breathless longing, abrasive sand, dragging footsteps, piercing strings, mounting despair, gruelling conditions and startling intimacy.Premiered at the International Oerol theater Festival 2009,
followed by performances at festival Karavaan and a Dutch Theatertour in 2009 and a second tour in 2010/2011.
International premiere: Winchesters hat fair 2014
Awarded with the Charlotte Köhlerprice 2014, as part of the Via Berlin war-triptych.
Reviews
“An Oerol performance that will remain in the memory for years to come. This is how it should be done: a powerful premise, beautifully developed, compellingly performed and played, without a single dull moment.”— Jeroen Wielaert - NOS Radio1 journaal
“Via Berlin, the company of actress Dagmar Slagmolen and musician Rosa Arnold, working under the banner of Orkater/De Nieuwkomers, brings a performance to Oerol filled with longing, despair and devastating intimacy. (…) The piercing tones of the violin are genuinely moving.”— Chris Belloni – Theater Journaal
“The talent to get to the very heart of the matter, both musically and theatrically, with such limited means is something to be cherished.”— Marie-Paule Fritschy – Theatercentraal
"A brilliantly played electric violin, a homemade milk-churn bass and a range of improvised percussion instruments beautifully evoke an atmosphere that is at once threatening, panicked, hopeful, confused and desperate, culminating in a cinematic ending with an unexpected twist."— 8Weekly