Luk Perceval - Toneelgroep Amsterdam

A second production directed by Luk Perceval this season! As a guest director at Toneelgroep Amsterdam he asked Josse De Pauw to create a stage adaptation of 'Disgrace'. In 1999 J. M. Coetzee was awarded the Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize for literature for this astonishing novel. In it he aptly describes how David Lurie, a professor of romantic poetry, can no longer find his place in the new South Africa. Lurie, in his fifties and twice divorced, has a relationship with a student. His colleagues denounce him, but he refuses to crawl. After he is dismissed he decides to leave Cape Town and visit his daughter Lucy. She lives on a remote farm in the rugged Eastern Cape. Lucy is raped by a group of blacks in a brutal attack. Later it turns out she is pregnant, but she refuses to have an abortion. Nor does she report the incident to the police. She consciously wants to learn to survive in the new South Africa. David Lurie does not understand his daughter's choices. He has lost forever the zest of the romantic poet Lord Byron, who he idolized. He now works in a dog kennel where he lovingly helps to put down stray dogs.