Downstage Left’s most recent edition of the playground was performed in July, 2023 at the Badhuis Theater. The show sold out and was very well received.
With each Playground we pick a theme and present 3-5 short plays based on that theme, including work from emerging playwrights, as well as established greats. For this edition of the Playground, we brought you three short plays about people looking for resolution — and not always finding it.
The plays
Gobby, by Jodie Irvine
Gobby is the story of one woman’s journey through five parties and the curse of being ‘too loud’. Awkward meetings and exclusion abound. Sometimes hilarious and sometimes deeply saddening, Gobby is a festival of feelings.
Meeting in Amsterdam, by Edward Einhorn
Frida Vanek, niece of the famous dissident playwright Ferdinand Vanek (a character made famous by Vaclav Havel), has a meeting in Amsterdam with Jan Stanek, her father’s old friend. Frida is an American, her parents immigrated just after the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. Jan is running for political office in the modern Czech Republic and visiting Amsterdam to fundraise. Frida has just found some damning papers about Jan, however, in her mother’s papers. According to the papers, Jan was once an informant to the Communist secret police. Frida confronts Jan and the question of whether to make them public.
First came guilt and shame followed, by Linda Sjöström
A brand new and deeply moving piece that looks at the pains of family duty and some of the almost impossible burdens of motherhood.
When and where?
Playground 5 played at
The Badhuistheater
Boerhaaveplein 28
1091 AT
badhuistheater.nl
Thursday 13 July 20:00
Friday 14 July 20:00
Saturday 15 July 20:00
Standard €17
Early-bird €15.00 (available until the end of May)
This edition of the Playground was made possible with the kind support of the Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst
Downstage Left 