Experiencing something so beautiful that it hurts

Sometimes you experience something so beautiful, that it hurts you. That you don't want to blink, holding on to that one moment that you wish would never disappear. That you want to disappear in that exact moment of time, never to return to the everyday-ness that hides behind it.

I have that sometimes, when I go and see a play. A theater piece. It doesn't happen a lot. It actually happens rarely. And maybe that's okay. Maybe that even makes it more special. But I had that tonight, when I went to a play, a monologue performed by someone who had also written it. Who had written it as a response to La voix humaine, the voice of humanity, a monologue by Jean Cocteau written in the 1930s. Performed by the author who had written it for himself. Directed by one of the biggest Dutch directors alive, and who has recently also been getting more international acclaim, Ivo van Hove.

I've been going to Van Hove's plays for many years now, and lately I got more and more disappointed. But not this time. This time he went back to his roots, his affinity with Ingmar Bergman. To his absurd beauty he already showed in After the Rehearsal/Persona. To the silence that breaks tension into pieces, without picking them up. Showing reality without telling us what we are looking at. Mesmerizing the audience, or at least me. It makes me feel breathless. Hopelessly blessed. Intoxicated with a beauty that hurts. That touches the soul - whatever that may be.

Why does it hurt so much, seeing such a play? It is the moment the lights go out. That people return to their lives, that cell phones are checked, car keys retrieved from pockets. That moment everybody wants to confirm the beauty of the shared experience, by destroying everything that was true.

And it hurts, to come back home, to open your computer and see what everybody has been doing. The nothingness of all, that continuous ramble that has no end. Everything is changed, and I know that when I go to sleep, I will wake up part of that world again. So I postpone it. I write. I cry. I play the piano. I drink. I stop the time being. I stop -- the time --
being. I swallow the last bits of silence I can still retain, before my brain starts to think about what it was that I saw. Before I start to analyse it to death. Before I see that one clumsy move, that one interrupted gesture.

I wish I could always keep this feeling with me. That words are magic and can carry it with them, so that I can enter this state of exultation whenever I want, wherever I am. I know, I know - don't tell me. This is silly. But it is the kind of silliness that brings life to the dreadful world.

Thank you, people all around the world who recognize this. Who strive to obtain it. Thank you Ramsey Nasr for doing it tonight. Thank you Ivo van Hove to push performance of existence to the limits. Thank you Toneelgroep Amsterdam, even if you sometimes fail to reach this level, you can still obtain it and at least you acknowledge its existence. Thank you, world, and language, and life. Thank you for beauty to still exist.

Picture by Jan Versweyveld, Toneelgroep Amsterdam.