The making of… Getekend

Today’s students are playing the students of the 1940s. Students who had to make a choice in 1943: to be loyal to the occupying forces and continue their studies, or to refuse and do forced labour in Germany. Here follows a glimpse behind the scenes of Getekend (Signed).

The idea

Drama and passion at the heart of TU Delft: that’s how it feels to Bauke Steenhuisen, a lecturer at TU Delft, when he performs the opera Carmen with students in the auditorium in November 2012. Shortly afterwards he reads the book Loyaliteit in verdrukking [Loyalty in oppression] by Onno Sinke, about Delft students and what was then still the College of Technology during the Second World War. He’s stopped in his tracks, because he realises how much the institute’s integrity and the ethics of being an engineer came under pressure during the war.

In February 2013, his strong desire to keep this theme alive and his warm recollections of Carmen lead him to the idea of a play. In a café, Steenhuisen discusses this idea with Onno Sinke, who coincidentally happens to have started a drama course. Sinke has a good feeling about the idea and after e-mailing the Rector, Steenhuisen is invited to present a plan. After the Executive Board proves enthusiastic, in the summer the lecturer approaches the drama societies of the Delft Student Club, Virgiel and Sint Jansbrug. Along with some interested students, he sets up an initiative group to develop his idea, for they still have absolutely nothing: no organisation, no budget, no writer and no association.

So as to be able to raise money, the group resurrects the

‘sleeping’ Studium Generale foundation. Studium Generale was set up shortly after the war to ‘broaden engineers’ horizons’, but it’s currently being run by a commercial agency. The initiative-takers seek advice from the Dutch National Theatre, succeed in landing the scriptwriter Reinier Noordzij and the director Albert van Andel, and together with the latter, write to funding bodies. In April 2014, Steenhuisen asks Jeroen van de Laar, a lecturer in design, for help with making a set. He sets up an honours Master’s course for this purpose. Around this time, Steenhuisen speaks with lecturer Sylvia Pont, of the elective Master’s in Lighting Design, about having students do the lighting for both the stage and the foyer.

So as to have their own space, the initiative group procures a small room in the library. The students book the auditorium between Ascension Day and Whitsun. In May 2014, along with the scriptwriter, the director and Steenhuisen, the students visit the various student associations in turn, to find people who are interested in acting and helping with the organisation.

The script

For his script, Reinier Noordzij starts off by doing around two months of research. He re-reads Sinke’s book and reads parts of Lou de Jong’s standard work on the Netherlands in the Second World War, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, especially the parts on the student resistance movement and the declaration of loyalty. The Germans confronted all students with this declaration in 1943: anyone who wanted to continue their studies first had to declare their loyalty to the German occupying forces; anyone who refused would be barred from their studies and sent to Germany to do forced labour. It quickly becomes clear to Noordzij that this declaration will form the heart of the play.

He draws inspiration from the TV series Bij nader inzien [On further consideration], which is about students just after the war, taking particular note of the atmosphere and use of language. The most important source of inspiration is the play Antigone, in which Sophocles sets a person’s conscience

against the law. Noordzij mainly focuses on the two sisters in the play, one of whom is principled and the other somewhat more opportunistic. In his script, why shouldn’t he follow two brothers in their moral dilemma: to sign or to refuse?

Along with the dramatists Mark Timmer and Hannah Ester, Noordzij takes two months to sketch out the broad outlines of the story. It is about the group of students surrounding two brothers. One refuses to sign for principled reasons, the other seems more pragmatic. Noordzij has conversations with three people who themselves faced this choice at the time, refused to sign and were active in the resistance. Noordzij includes a lot of information from these conversations in the script. From January of this year, he works on it every day for 2.5 months, supported by the dramatists and the director, Albert van Andel. He checks the historical accuracy of elements of the script with Sinke. “I think that it’s important to keep history alive.”

The auditions

The auditions are held on two dark evenings in January. After various calls are put out on campus, more than thirty students and one lecturer have applied. They get a piece of dialogue from the still-evolving script, plus two monologues, of which they can choose one. One by one, they report to the little room in the library. They are met by four people, seated at a table.

“Hello, I’m Albert van Andel, the director. Sitting next to me are the scriptwriter Reinier Noordzij, the professional actor Sven Bijma and the student Kseniya Otmakova, who will give you a prompt if necessary. Who are you, and what are you like?”

“I’m Tom Postma and I’m doing a Master’s in Petroleum Engineering. I heard about this production from a housemate. I’ve never done any acting, aside from a musical in the final year of primary school, when I played a detective in a trench coat.”

“OK. Which monologue have you chosen?”

“The one with the disappearing act.”

“Do you need anything?”

“No, I brought a glass with me.”

“If you forget your words, say ‘prompt’. It really doesn’t matter if you do. OK?”

Tom gets out the glass that he needs in his monologue and sets off: “I’m going to do a disappearing act…”

Every now and then, he sounds a little unsure of himself.

Once he’s finished, Van Andel makes a suggestion: “Do the monologue as though you’ve been doing it for six years. You talk very loudly, you walk around a lot and the audience chants at the end.”

Tom follows his advice carefully and sounds much more convincing.

This is followed by part of a dialogue with the actor Bijma, in which two friends are discussing the declaration of loyalty. Postma plays a student who’s having doubts, and who’s slept badly. He occasionally needs a prompt from Kseniya. Noordzij and Van Andel are on the look-out for daring, charisma and enthusiasm, but they give nothing away. At the end, Van Andel takes a photo of Postma. “We’ll announce the results on 20 January,” he tells the student. “If you don’t get it, then I’d like to talk to you about a walk-on role.” Two weeks later, Postma hears that he’s been selected for a speaking role.

The set

04 March 2015. Ten excited honours students are sitting round a large table in the models hall of the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. “Zero-hour: the presentation,” says the lecturer Jeroen van de Laar, who’s joined by the director, scriptwriter and Steenhuisen. The students have been working on the set design since October. They’ve analysed the play, interviewed the writer and director, have done location research for the measurements of the auditorium, investigated the technical possibilities and have designed various sets. Van de Laar chose a definitive design from these, which they’ve now developed, both technically and in terms of feasibility and finances.

Exactly what the set depicts has to remain a secret, but it’s built out of boxes that function as a study, sports hall, university library, society and church. Behind the set, the Groover Big Band will play music from the 1920s and 1930s, along with songs that have been composed specially

for Getekend by Peter Habraken. They test the sound with Groover in mid-April.

“Well done!” says the director Van Andel, after the presentation of the set. “You’ve got bags under your eyes, so you’ve clearly been working into the small hours.” His most important question is about ‘mapping’, the projection of photos onto the set. “If we use mapping, will it be used across the actors, meaning that there’ll be shadows… And how will the tables be used in the set? Won’t that staircase block the sightline? I’d shift the set forwards by a metre, you’ll need at least that to have a corridor at the back. And where do you enter the stage?” The students have two weeks to work out the final details and two months to get working on the boxes. On 13 and 14 May, they will construct the set on location.

Rehearsals and casting

The rehearsals begin in February and are held every Monday evening. Initially they rehearse by reading the scenes out loud together. The parts have not yet been allocated; Van Andel and Noordzij first want to know whether the actors understand the script and how they interpret the characters. The final go/no-go decision on the production is only made on 23 February, after which Van Andel puts together a team with three professional actors and the production manager Joshua Lindeman. Besides, the script isn’t finished yet. Noordzij polishes and cuts during the rehearsals, as then he can hear how it sounds.

The rehearsals serve yet another goal: casting. Can someone think themselves into a character? Does he or she have compassion for the intended role? Is there a good match between characters who are often on stage together? This is what Van Andel and Noordzij are looking out for; they’d already made lists on this after the auditions.

In mid-March, they’re done: three large and leading roles will be played by professionals, and ten other roles will be played by people from TU Delft. Take the student Tom Postma (21), for example. In the end, he’ll play Rudolf. “Tom is very young, but he already has a kind of natural authority,”

says Van Andel. “He reaches conclusions quickly, he doesn’t have doubts.” Perfect for Rudolf.

Second-year Architecture and the Built Environment student Laurens Oostwegel (19) plays Joop, a character who really wants to do the right thing, but who can have severe doubts due to his youth. “Laurens understands that,” says Van Andel. “There’s something young and intellectual about him.” Laurens started acting early, took part in various productions and put on a play with a friend half way through secondary school. He says that he hasn’t found his part very difficult so far.

Lecturer in Organisation Science and Public Administration, Haiko van der Voort (42), plays a priest and two fathers. He’s acted before in amateur companies, has been cast for his age, and represents the older generation that didn’t have to sign. He really enjoys playing a rather blustering father and describes switching to his other roles as a ‘challenge’. Just a few days ago, they tried on their costumes from the costume departments of the Dutch National Theatre and the RO Theater.

And now? Currently, everyone’s still very busy with the final preparations. Onno Sinke can’t wait to see how the story’s been developed. “My expectations are high. Certainly regarding the set and what the students will have done with it, with their technical background. That should be really spectacular.”

Getekend, 19-23 May, Aula Building, TU Delft. www.getekenddelft.nl

The play will be performed in Dutch and surtitled in English.