Walk around Utrecht past the charming shops, the old-world bookstores, the throngs of cheerful, attractive bikers, and immaculate, slim streets and narrow canals with nary a gum wrapper befouling them, and you can’t help thinking that the Dutch really have it together. Holland is nearly perfect. It has the most productive economy per capita in the world, the shortest workweek (32 hours, by law!), and the most elaborate social safety net of any country on earth. So it comes as a bit of a surprise that Utrecht still struggles with homelessness. That it does, believes Dutch director Berthold Gunster, says something counterintuitive about the deepest form of poverty.
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He thinks the best way to understand the complex causes of homelessness is not through sociology, social work, or economics, but through listening to the homeless tell their own stories. Some of which Gunster finds highly entertaining–enough to make plays out of them. In 1998, with grants from foundations and the government, he put together a play with the vendors of Straatnieuws, Utrecht’s version of Streetwise. At the end of the 30-show run, one of the crew members, Johan, proposed a show based on his own life. Gunster wasn’t interested. But Johan persevered and explained his concept. The play would be a game in which the audience would participate and puzzle through the roots of Johan’s plight.
By “something” he meant a show in the spirit of the Dutch production. For him, creating a play involves getting the subjects of the drama to create it themselves. In the Netherlands the 41-year-old has worked with people on the “fringes of society,” directing movies and plays starring runaway youths, workers from a shuttered steel mill, and various community groups. Recently he began working as a consultant to businesses, teaching workers to communicate with each other better. Income from his commercial work helped pay for the Chicago venture.
–Ted C. Fishman
