The way it is

Two women happen to meet on a beach. One gives the other a lift to her home and thus introduces her family. It turns out to be a rather unusual family and the visitor feels slightly ill at ease. She is an actress with the Dutch theatre co-operative “Het Werkteater” and the interest one of the sons displays in photography and film brings her closer to the family. The result of this chance meeting is the video-production THE WAY IT IS – a self portrait of the four members of the Blocker-family, each of them with a handicap. In the past, “Het Werteater” produced a number of plays about handicapped people, hospitals and other aspects of health care. Audiences seemed to accept actors playing handicapped people, but would rather not look too closely at real handicapped people. Why should that be? How can audiences be persuaded to do so anyway? It is a “Werkteater” – tradition to examine the area where fact meets fiction, where reality and acting are indistinguishable. This programme has another form than any of our other “drama” – productions. It explores the possibilities between drama and documentary, not because of the experiment as such, but because it was the only way to tell this message.