Piek Kock
"I feel a connection to the themes of the performance. It is a very personal story in a strong historical context,” says Willem Voogd. On April 7, he will perform at the Schouwburg, along with Reinout Bussemaker and Lot van Lunteren, in the impressive family story ‘De Stamhouder’. They tell the true and very relatable story of a grandson with a Russian grandmother and a Dutch grandfather who goes on a quest for his identity.
Willem Voogd (1988) plays grandson Alexander and is also a grandson of a Russian grandmother and a Dutch grandfather, whose history is also connected to World War II.
“Unlike me, my character Alexander grew up without love, support, and stability in his parental home. In the performance, we let Alexander, urged by his wife Ellen, search for that heavy burden and the great loss from his past that he always avoided,” Voogd explains.
Voogd has also undergone a personal search. "When I dived into my grandmother's history for my podcast and performance Baba, I asked my father if he would translate her memoirs from Russian to Dutch up until his birth. He refused. Eventually he did it anyway, and when he was finished he said: ‘This is my prenatal biography. Thank you for forcing me to do this.’ Through that translation he engaged with something he had previously been reluctant to face.”
Voogd hopes that the performance encourages people to engage in conversations with themselves and others about their relationship to their ancestors and prehistory, even without WWII trauma, just as Voogd has done himself.
“In a way, the performance is about growing up. About breaking away from your parents, which strangely seems to only be possible when you gain understanding of their struggles. For Alexander in the performance, this leads to a catharsis, and I hope the audience can also experience that catharsis. That you can leave the theater with a lighter backpack,” Voogd concludes.
