Golden Palace

Golden Palace occupies a special place within the Dutch theatre landscape. The group is renowned for it’s distictive  performing style: a strong mix of physical acting, singing and live music.
The theatre of Golden Palace is lightly surreal: the 'daily experience' can subtly shift into the realms of a magical reality. Performances of Golden Palace are devised through improvisation and deal with the tragi-comic human struggle to make sense out of the contradictions of everyday existence. Absurd, hilarious and heartbreaking are words often used by reviewers to describe the work of Golden Palace.
Since 2001 Golden Palace has been structurally funded by the Dutch Ministry of Culture.

Golden Palace`s artistic director Ingrid Kuijpers (Eindhoven, 1958) studied at the Theatre School in Arnhem in the Netherlands. After many years of acting in self-devised theatre performances, she decided to concentrate her talents in directing. In 1997, with the  project Golden Palace, Kuijpers began developing both a theatrical form and a group of collaborators which would later become the company Golden Palace.

 

The ventriloquist

“Few theatre-performances remain in your memory for ever. The ventriloquist is just one of them” (pressquote)

The Ventriloquist introduces the audience to a somewhat eccentric family. The mother – a former variety artiste - has a bizarre relationship with her son. As soon as the father leaves the house, she seizes the moment to play a secret game with him. She dresses him up as a ventriloquist dummy and manipulates him into a dangerous fantasy-world.
The father returns and mother and son shift back into normality just in time. When the new piano-teacher unexpectedly arrives, the tension within this fragile family finally erupts and the evening escalates to a horrifying climax.

“It`s classical, the way human tragedy is made funny and absurd. Every laugh you produce to escape from sadness, is immediately thrown back at you. The mother puts the boy on her lap and talks to him as if he were a puppet. But she moves away quickly when the atmosphere becomes too sexual. All children grow up… The father is just as crazy and parades the stage like Jacques Tati, exposing his jokes endlessly. Then all three of them burst out in a song accompanied by father on guitar, in a way that takes the shine out of the Sound of Music`s von Trapp family. Wouldn`t it be great for Holland if this Ventriloquist family would be the prototypical model-household of our society…” (pressquote).

The Ventriloquist is considered to be one of the highlights within the Golden Palace oevre. It was awarded the Dutch Mime Prize in 2001.

More quotes from the press:
“The supreme ensemble-acting involves tapdance and close harmony singing as well as slapstick and mime: unmatched and irresistable.”
“And suddenly you understand that this mother can`t let go of her child: she doesn`t want him to grow up. Golden Palace shows the greatness of everyday life in a theatre poem full of love.”
“Using a thriller-like build-up Ingrid Kuijpers directs the tension within the family to a climax of inner drama. Everything is so well-composed and powerful, it makes you realise how impressive theatre can be.”

The Ventriloquist is played by David Eeles, Yahya Gaier, Trudie Lute and Kees van Zantwijk.

For further information contact Ingrid Kuijpers (artistic director) or Tanja van Dijk (managing director).
Address: Blankenstraat 376 B
1018 SK Amsterdam, the Netherlands
T 0031 (0)20 412 39 78 or 0031 (0)6 19438802
E-mail: mail@goldenpalace.nl
Website: www.goldenpalace.nl