The almighty sometimes

production
Anna has just become an adult and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder since she was eleven, receiving therapy and medication. She wants to write, but her imaginative stories are often seen not only as expressions of creativity, but also as signs of her mental condition. At the same time, she is a teenager who can be blunt, even harsh, with the people closest to her. Now that Anna is an adult, she wants to take more control over her life — from her mother, her psychiatrist, and even her medication. Against the advice of those around her, she stops taking her medication, a choice with serious consequences for herself and everyone she loves. A performance about mother-daughter love, and about the weight of living with — or caring for someone with — depression.

design
Anna exists in a system designed to give her maximum stability and predictability, with as few triggers as possible — and where she can be closely monitored, whether at home, in her psychiatrist’s office, on the street, or in the clinic. We imagined a clean, clinical space: realistic enough to feel familiar, yet minimal, precise, and suffocatingly orderly. A geometric, stimulus-free “non-space” that could represent all these locations at once. The set spans the full width of the stage, wide but not deep, and features two identical staircases. When Anna experiences a psychotic episode, perspective and the laws of nature — gravity included — begin to shift. Like a slow explosion, the space opens up, and Anna begins to float, just like the girl from the stories she wrote as a child.

Jury selection for the National Dutch Theatre Festival 2025