Home Sweet Home

An actor, actress, four percussionists, and a string quartet together portray the poignant story of a man and woman reunited after a war—yet unable to live together again.

The war is over. A soldier returns from battle, back home. What he finds is a barren, empty village. No one is there. In his mind, his wife comes to life, and memories, delusions, traumas, desires, and hope weave the days together— until suddenly, she stands before him in reality.

Classical and contemporary music, inventive soundscapes, custom-built instruments, and a musical set design: music plays a central role in Via Berlin’s work. The creators treat text and music—and thus actor and musician—as fully equal storytelling tools. Music and text form a single, unified whole.

With Home Sweet Home, we take another step forward and expand our search. The female string players set against the male percussionists create a tension that resonates with the theme of the performance. Moreover, the combination of the distinctive timbres of strings and percussion offers a wide spectrum of possibilities for expressing contrasting atmospheres: masculinity versus femininity, violence versus tenderness, rhythmic versus melodic, from subtle to deafening.

This is a production by Via Berlin and Slagwerk Den Haag.