Paul, you've had quite a few years of experience at Toneelschuur Productions. How do you look back on your own development?

Knieriem: During my time at the Regie Opleiding there were many more production houses than now, but even then the Toneelschuur was a place where interesting things happened and where you didn't just get to walk in. After graduating, I was allowed to make a production immediately and made every mistake in the book! That performance played for a week in Haarlem. One reviewer came to see it and wrote an encouraging review. Things have changed. Now, you can't make a production without a tour attached to it. The press is also much harsher on young makers. Even if you have just graduated, you get slapped down if you don't succeed. Toneelschuur is increasingly positioning itself as a purveyor to the main stage. I feel I am in that tradition, which creates expectations and also a certain pressure. The makers who are allowed to develop here are well supported, both financially and by the fact that commitment is always for a longer period. What I found difficult in the beginning, but now appreciate, is that the production apparatus is so streamlined. If you want to tour with a show, you have to have a title and preferably a concept as well at least one and a half to two years in advance. When you are younger, that can feel quite restrictive but in the meantime I have learned that the earlier you dare to make decisions, the more room there is to develop your plan further.

Nina, what has Toneelschuur Productions meant for your growth as a director so far?

Spijkers: When I had just left school, I felt like there was an ocean of possibilities. I wanted everything, and so nothing really. I was expected to have already defined my identity as a maker and to know where I wanted to go. Inventing was my own 'business' and I learned a lot from that. Now, I experience choosing a piece as picking out a good bottle of wine that you can leave for two years, maturing, and that feels like wealth. I tune into my intuition, explore my personal fascination and try to sense what to talk about two years from now. Timelessness is not enough. I now trust myself and know what I want, which is what the Toneelschuur, with all its machinery, has taught me. It's tremendously good baggage. They also have the courage to let me make something that is not based on repertoire, for example the play Happiness that will premiere in February 2018. That they give me that freedom is essential for my development.

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As the youngest of the creators, do you learn from veterans like Paul or does your generation have its own approach?

Spijkers: When I joined, I was the first woman in a men's club [alongside Knieriem, Joost van Hezik and Michiel de Regt, ed.] and that was not a warm collegial bath; everyone was working for themselves. That has now changed though, we go and watch each other's rehearsals and try-outs. I like the fact that Toneelschuur is really becoming a house where we learn from each other's mistakes and successes. Because just as when I was a student, I learn the most from other directors.

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Knieriem: That image is not quite correct, we were evenly matched but did have conversations among ourselves. Nina also came to see me at a difficult moment in the process and we talked to each other at length about it, which was heartening. But I also see another side: if you sail along on the common atmosphere and flavour of the production house, what is your distinguishing feature? There is more togetherness now than before but I also sometimes wonder if the performances are not becoming too similar.

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Spijkers: I don't agree with you on that. For all of us, theatre repertoire is the source, but how we deal with it is still very different.

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What do you recognise in each other's work and what exactly sets you apart?

Knieriem: I think we are both good at working with actors, that's where our quality and great fascination for the profession lies.

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Spijkers: Perhaps a difference between us is that I work more from an idea, a form, and you work more from the psychology of the characters.

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Knieriem: I think in terms of aesthetics, you lean more towards the large auditorium, your work is grander and more immersive. I tend to search more in the nebulous.

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Spijkers: It also has to do with the way we give signals to the audience. With me, for example, the use and changes of light and scenery are important, these are very detailed and precisely timed. With you, on the contrary, the awkward, transparent, is a choice and a strength.

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Knieriem: With you it's a bit more "opera" and with me it's a bit more "craft corner". One day I may want to do a Schiller or a Molière, but I don't find much of that older repertoire suitable for the flat floor. With respect to your Don Carlos, I would never do that. That piece needs space. Similarly, I think staging Shakespeare with four actors is nonsense.

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Spijkers: [laughs] I'm going to do that next!

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Knieriem: Oh, well, I'll come and watch you, but my director's fantasy doesn't involve that. I think those pieces need space and a large ensemble. The pieces I choose are more driven by the psychology anyway, which makes the smaller auditorium better suited.

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Spijkers: Don Carlos or The Taming of the Shrew have a lot of characters and that forces me to make good choices on content, personality and form. That’s perfect for me right now, and those are the pieces I love and want to engage with. The subject matter, the language... I don't want to wait until someone says: here you have the large auditorium go and do that. I want it now.

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Knieriem: For me, choosing a piece always has to do with who is going to play it. Only when I know that, does it really come alive. With De Huisbewaarder it was even the other way round: I really wanted to work with René van 't Hof and only then came across the play. What I like about the Toneelschuur's stable production system is that I dare to aim high and can work with good actors. I like performances where the director is invisible. That's why I always find it a difficult moment at the beginning to have to come up with a director's vision. Ideally, I want to say: we have actors and a piece and we are going to do this as well as we can. Anything else you articulate soon sounds flatter than the performance is.

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Is it characteristic of our time, that you feel forced to give a simplified take on the content or the value of a text or a performance?

Spijkers: Yes. I think there is too much emphasis on the idea that repertory theatre should be topical. Even worse is the requirement that it should reflect the worldview you want to convey. That would mean rewriting the entire world repertoire. Instead, it can be interesting to show contradictions or an outdated worldview, along with someone rebelling against it. I also believe in the educational function that drama can have, in that it contributes to the survival of language. More and more words are being lost and our attention span is getting shorter and shorter. With Shakespeare, you expose people to the art of language and for that reason alone it is important to keep playing texts in their existing form. Of course, I do ask myself why a text should be played, what my contribution is. But I am not intrusive in that. I find nothing as sexy as making language sound so that you no longer feel it is old. When an actor manages to do that, it's such a euphoric moment.

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Can you cite an example from one of your performances where that worked?

Spijkers: We worked on a monologue by the Marquis of Posa in Don Carlos, in which he expresses his ideals to the king. We did it so that the other characters joined him one by one, until they spoke together in one voice. We had talked a lot about that text, which is about freedom and equality. There are plenty of places in the world where that is questioned, but here we sometimes forget that it is the most important thing a human being can have. In that rehearsal, we discovered that the players could all speak the text simultaneously in their own way, not strung out like a machine, but from their own inspiration. That was a magical moment, because we felt how grand and important those words were. They sounded more like a pop song than like Schiller, and I think that's the highest achievement.

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Knieriem: I experienced something like that while working on the Troy Trilogy. That play was written 30 years ago by Koos Terpstra, at the time of the Yugoslav crisis. Beforehand, I had wondered: is this really what war is like, or has this been romanticised? It featured one actor who was born in Syria, who by the way was not cast for that reason [George Tobal, ed.]. During rehearsals, I asked him and he confirmed that at his home, at the kitchen table, people talk about the war in the same was as in the Troy Trilogy. After that, we didn't talk about it again. Because that's how it is with repertoire: you want to talk about something without wanting to talk about it. As a director, you hope your work resonates with the present, that it resonates with the audience, even if only associatively or emotionally. For instance, for me, De Huisbewaarder is secretly about the erosion of the welfare state, but I will not put that in the publicity text – not in a million years! People have to feel that for themselves.

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Spijkers: And that can also start with something personal. It's often about whether a piece has social value but in Ivanov, for example, I could express how depression feels, how I deal with it and fight against it. To be told by someone in the audience, "I never understood what exactly depression is but tonight I felt it", was the biggest compliment for me. There are more and more people with depression and burn-outs. Playing a repertoire piece that deals with that is as legitimate as making a new piece. The question of how to live with death continues to fascinate me endlessly. That's why Hamlet is as relevant to me as a new performance on the subject. In both cases I’ll be in the front row.

Knieriem: Some those who support us financially are also steering more and more towards social value and topicality. I think that's a shame. For the management of the Toneelschuur, one of the key words is: Trust. If they have that, they guide you, and if you think something should be made now, you can do it.

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As artists, can't you appropriate the conversation about this, feed it with your own language?

Knieriem: I do feel that directors of repertory theatre are looking for new answers. In the 1980s, "universal and timeless" was used as a publicity text but you really can't get away with that now.

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Spijkers: I think that is right too. I think it is our responsibility to see these texts in today’s context and draw conclusions from them. We have an obligation to always do that and it is good to have discussions. But nobody has a monopoly on the truth and it is not the intention that others should tell us how and what to make, doing so takes away people's artistry. Giving insight is important though. I hold public rehearsals during the editing period so that interested parties can see exactly what you are doing. Behind every word and every change of light, there is a choice of content. It's great fun when people discover that a sentence actually means something different when said in a different way. In this way, you can show that making theatre is a profession and a craft and that helps to understand why it costs so much time and money.

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Knieriem: When people have been to a rehearsal, they often see what has changed in the final performance and what the effect is. They often speak to me about that. That's why I like those public rehearsals. I also give introductions and often go on tours with them. I try to create transparency, speak to as many people as possible.

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Spijkers: I find it striking that there is a lot of criticism of repertory theatre. Our theatre could be talked about more lovingly and openly. If you see what Ivo van Hove does, for instance, the productions he makes abroad... I think that's impressive, fantastic and good for the theatre's reputation. We should all be immensely proud.

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In what ways do current events play a role in your work as a director? What are themes or events that concern you?

Spijkers: Besides the collective obsession with happiness, about which I am preparing a show, for me it’s feminism. There is significant development going on in there, a changing consciousness. I'm thinking about what my voice is and I'm going to figure that out based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. It will be a play where the roles are reversed, men are played by women and women by men. That play is perfect for that. The unique thing about theatre is that you can be more eclectic, more diffuse in your statement. You can make people experience something, think and feel something. I envisage a performance with as many as twenty statements and a diversity of views, so not an event where you state where your flag is planted. I don't want to force a tagline down people's throats, but take them on a journey of discovery.

Knieriem: In my work, it's more and more about the individualisation of society. What I find extremely moving about theatre is that you experience something collectively, something that you can only experience together. Maybe that's my Christian background. I'm also thinking more and more about youth theatre and about the question of what connects us, what makes us a group. De Toneelmakerij performs in both Amsterdam Zuid and Zuid-Oost for people with completely different backgrounds. But they do see the same performance. I think theatre can take on a bigger role than it does now.

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Published on 21 November 2017.