Ivo van Hove . Toneelgroep Amsterdam

'After the Rehearsal' and 'Persona' are the third and fourth plays by Ingmar Bergman that Ivo van Hove will have staged. Previously he had already been successful with 'Scenes from a Marriage' (2005) and 'Cries and Whispers' (2009). It is no coincidence that Ivo van Hove connects the two plays, in both of which an actress plays the central role. In them Bergman looks for the boundary separating imagination and reality, illness and normality. He questions the meaning of art in our lives, both coolly and lovingly. In 'After the Rehearsal', a former director stages August Strindberg's 'A Dream Play' for the fifth time. After a rehearsal he finds the young, ambitious protagonist. While talking about the play and life, spectres of the past loom up in the form of a mother and a former lover. Bergman portrays a director who sees the illusory world of the theatre as reality. In 'Persona', Bergman's 1966 masterpiece, we see a celebrated actress who stops speaking during a performance and withdraws into a bastion of silence. A young nurse tries to awaken her zest for life. But gradually she too realises that her life is empty and meaningless.