HARLEKINO
Photo: Sacha Muller
Katrien van Beurden spent 25 years travelling the world to create theatre with a suitcase full of commedia masks. Until suddenly she had to lie still. Newly a mother, with cancer in her breast, she listened to the monotonous beeping of the MRI machine and wondered: ‘How do you actually do that, lie still?’
A kaleidoscopic journey unfolds, taking her back to Kaatje, via all the survivors she met along the way – the harlequins. The eight-year-old girl who, singing loudly, fills her deceased brother's coffin with toys. In a house
Katrien van Beurden spent 25 years traveling the world to create theater with a suitcase full of commedia masks. Until suddenly she had to lie still. Newly a mother, with cancer in her breast, she listened to the monotonous beeping of the MRI and wondered: “How do you actually do that, lie still?”
A kaleidoscopic journey unfolds, taking her back to Kaatje, via all the survivors she met along the way—the harlequins. The eight-year-old girl who, singing loudly, fills her deceased brother's coffin with toys. In a house drowning in grief and anger, she discovers early on that play and imagination are her most loyal allies.
Harlekino is a wild, comical, and poetic solo performance. A show that sparkles with energy and raw emotion. Katrien balances between reality and imagination. With her masks and specially composed music by Remy van Kesteren, she creates a cinematic storm of stories.
She slips into the skin of Harlekino, the iconic trickster, whose spirit has been her fascination and driving force for years. He teaches us that hope is not something to believe in, but something to do. Harlekino is an ode to life and death, to our brilliantly successful and hopelessly failed attempts to survive.
‘Her theatre celebrates human resilience
and reminds us never to lose heart.’
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FEMKE HALSEMA - MAYOR OF AMSTERDAM
CREDITS
Actor/writer: Katrien van Beurden
Collective coaching: Thomas van Ouwerkerk, Sacha Muller, Titus Tiel Groenestege, Anne Fé de Boer, Timo de Vries
Masks: Den Durand
Music: Remy van Kesteren
Lichtdesign: Yuri Schreuders
Business management: Monique Bos
Creative producer: Aafke de Vries
Marketing en publicity: Daan Aeijelts Averink
Publicity photo: Sacha Muller
Posterdesign: Thomas van Ouwerkerk
Special thanks to: Voordekunst, Jacqueline Kleijn, Hugo Keuzenkamp, Tjipke Bergsma, Nan van Houte, Lucas Hendricks, Shelly Razaak, Saliha Abba, Alaa Shehada, Mustafa Staiti
Dario & Misja Photography
“Van Beurden created a new Commedia that transcend time, space, and culture.
A theatre where we can laugh and cry about how we try to survive in the world today.”
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JUDITH CHAFFEE- DIRECTOR BOSTON UNIVERSITY THEATRE
ABOUT KATRIEN VAN BEURDEN
Katrien van Beurden is the founder and artistic director of the international theatre company Troupe Courage. In May 2023, Katrien van Beurden was appointed Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau, in recognition of her boundless commitment to making theatre relevant and indispensable. This tribute not only marks her career, but also reflects her tireless search for the essence of theatre and its transformative power.
She previously directed the play “The Horse of Jenin”, which was chosen by the Theatre Festival as one of the most impressive performances of 2025.
Di Trevis of the Royal Shakespeare Company calls her work ‘deadly serious and at the same time primally witty.’ Theaterkrant reviewer Kester Freriks wrote: ‘Important and innovative theatre. Van Beurden proves herself to be the heir to Peter Brook.’ Judith Chaffee from Boston adds: ‘She has developed a whole new Commedia that transcends time, space and culture.’
As an actress, she has appeared in films such as Tom Adelaar, De Wederopstanding van een Klootzak, and Kidnep, and has had television roles in Zomer zonder mamma, Kerst met de Kuipers, and Rampvlucht. Last season she played the lead role in De Vuurwerkramp and this season she can be seen in Buza 2, among other productions.
‘I have been around in the theatre world for more than 40 years, have made a lot, yet Katrien van Beurden recently managed to surprise me enormously. Because while we all looked in a different direction here in the Netherlands, she developed a stunning, disarming, hilarious, confrontational and primordial theatre language with her masks under our noses that is unique and transgressive in every way.
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TITUS TIEL GROENESTEGE – DIRECTOR
