Oral history meets visual history
7,8 and 13 May 2022
By and from Amsterdam elderly people about the fifties in Amsterdam.
The Fifties is the final part of a trilogy. The first performance Brand in Mokum was made by Loes Hegger with Amsterdam elderly people in 2019. The second performance Alive en Kicking were performed via Zoom.
With the third production, De Fifties, the actors return to the stage of the theatre, a community centre and care homes. Old-fashioned in real life, as theatre is meant to be. In a dance school, Amsterdammers tell stories about their parents, all young adults in 1950. The years of reconstruction in Amsterdam: mother was (mostly) a housewife, father a breadwinner. About the milkman, turning over every dime, darning socks and large families. The narrators venture into the foxtrot, cha cha cha and rock & roll, because on Saturday night you went out dancing!