http://www.marthatentatief.be

MartHa!tentatief is a theatre company that has been working on urban themes for years, resulting in easy access performances (some on location) that often have a festive feel to them. The company makes theatre about the world and the times we live in. Everything it does stems from the belief that the enormous changes that confront us today do not have to lead to loneliness, alienation and immobility. Because whilst every change involves an element of loss, it also throws open new perspectives and opportunities.

The Antwerp-based MartHa!tentatief can generally be described as an urban group. The city is the reality within which the company works, lives and exists. It is the place where the friction between then and now is at its most acute, and where the complexity of the changed world becomes visible. Today, even Antwerp is a complex place as a city, and processes are virtually impossible to influence. In the city the whole world comes together. And that’s what MartHa!tentatief wants to make theatre about. About the world in the city.

The company often starts out by thoroughly researching its topics. Armed with pen and laptop, camera and video equipment, it tries to sum up the fragmented and multi-coloured life of the city in word and image. For De Zoologie (2002-2007), a cheerful revue about Antwerp Zoo, visitors and keepers were interviewed over a period of four months. Magic Palace (2006, in collaboration with Erfgoedcel and OCMW Antwerpen) was constructed verbatim from the accounts of more than 300 senior citizens from Antwerp rest and care homes, about their experiences of nightlife between the wars.

As part of the subsidised theatre scene, MartHa!tentatief is intended to be a company that makes theatre for as wide and diverse an audience as possible. Its productions are aimed not only at the experienced audience of the type found in the major subsidised theatres, but also at those who live amongst the themes and topics that feature in the company’s pieces.