Kassys

KOMMER

How can something be deeply, profoundly sad yet hilarious at the same time? Somehow Dutch theatre company Kassys has created a performance which is just that in this sly and surreal work, combining film and live performance in equal measure. KOMMER, Dutch for "sorrow," traces the intersecting paths of six people as they race through inventive evasions, slapstick parlor tricks and dialogue culled from a soap opera in their search for something human and familiar. Both formally daring and emotionally resonant, KOMMER sheds light upon private and public moments of human frailty with a tender touch.

Kassys is an Amsterdam-based theatre initiative of Liesbeth Gritter and Mette van der Sijs, founded in 1999. The company makes theatre, films, exhibitions and hybrid forms whose goal is to display the beauty of human success and failure with succinct language and an unconventional narrative structure. Their work has been performed throughout Europe at theatres, art galleries, film and youth festivals, and performance spaces. In the United States they have performed at the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival, Walker Arts Center, Wexner Center for the Performing Arts, and On the Boards.

KOMMER is a Kassys production, co-produced with Productiehuis [Frascati] in Amsterdam, Productiehuis Rotterdam (Rotterdamse Schouwburg) and Kunstencentrum de Vooruit in Gent, Belgium. Funded by Fonds voor de Podiumkunsten, hetveemtheater Amsterdam, wpZimmer Antwerpen, Terschellings Oerol, VSB Fonds, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds and OC&W, Ministry of Culture.

The North American tour of KOMMER is produced by MAPP International Productions. www.multiartsprojects.com

"With a subtle style and an absurd touch, Kassys makes the everyday extraordinary. It is all brilliantly brought into vision.” De Volksrant, the Netherlands