The Last Act

Language: Cantata in French, Film in Dutch with English subtitles, The Raven in English

Three performances of half an hour each in different spaces in the Stadsgehoorzaal, with the audience moving from hall to hall. The grand finale to OverActing 2022!

In the Breezaal, Jed Wentz performs Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic masterpiece The Raven, with a musical accompaniment by Olga Pashchenko on an historical piano. Wentz’s performance is inspired by the research he carried out in the archive of David Bispham, who famously performed The Raven as a melodrama in 1909. In English.

We continue in the Aalmarktzaal, with a semi-scenic performance of a comic French Baroque cantata by composer Jean-Baptiste Stuck, Héraclite et Démocrite. These two Greek philosophers inform us that the world is a sad disaster and advise us how to cope: according to Heraclitus we can only weep, but Democritus simply cannot stop laughing at us, at himself, at everything. Two historical singer-actors, Michal Bitan and João Luís Paixão, take us back to the Paris of the 1710s, and help us to look out on our own sad world with tears of laughter in our eyes. In French.

At last, we finish the evening in the Aalmarktzaal. Martin de Ruiter (Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam) will accompany the 1920 silent film De Dood van Pierrot, a dramatic comedy about actors, acting and film-making. This film underscores the main themes of our OverActing festival by showcasing three different acting styles: the naturalism of drama, the exaggerated naturalism of comedy, and the unnaturalistic, expressive and dancelike qualities of tragedy. De Dood van Pierrot is not only charming in its own right, but invites us to reflect on the central position of naturalism in our current acting styles. 

Jed Wentz declamation 

Olga Pashchenko historical piano

Michal Bitan soprano

João Luís Paixão baritone

Postscript early music ensemble

Martin de Ruiter bandoneon