Ivo van Hove & Comédie-Française

The long-awaited and successful production ‘Les Damnés’ is finally coming! Following sell-out performances in Paris, New York and London, this will be a Benelux exclusive.
‘Les Damnés’ is set in Nazi Germany. To safeguard the interests of their steel empire, the Essenbeck family – based on the Krupp family – enter into a Faustian pact with the new regime. Family patriarch Baron Joachim protests and is liquidated. The battle for succession leads to an escalation of intrigues and manipulations, betrayal and death. The young Martin – son of the powerful baroness Sophie – succeeds in eliminating all his rivals. He thus becomes a pawn of the regime, which sees the control over steel production as within its grasp. Martin will pay a high price for this: living out a lonely existence in an icy, loveless world.

'Van Hove's chillingly prescient masterstroke' - *****The Guardian

'Rich and merciless production' - New York Times

'Van Hove's version strikes as sharper and clearer than Visconti's in etablishing links between familial decay and Nazi muderousness.' - The Guardian

'The great international theater auteur Ivo van Hove has set up an infernal, and ceaselessly creative, machine of destruction, one that burns an entire society into cinders.' - The New York Times