Night Flight

June-August 2006

IKTC Zaandam and Den Helder Airport

Night Flight, adapted by Tanya Ronder from the novella Vol de Nuit by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and translated into Dutch by Heleen Verburg, was Ben’s first major site work for MUZtheater.

Staged in the glass atrium of the IKTC, Zaandam, which houses a training centre for Boeing techinicians, and again in a hangar on the runway at Den Helder Airport, the piece centred on the solitary figure of Riviere, the airline chief of staff who holds the lives of the pilots under him in his hands.

The aircraft,created by means of office fans and microphones, and with scale models of the actual aircraft used to fly the post from South America to France in the 1930s, dominated the concept and the stunning design by Leo de Nijs, one of Holland’s premier designers for location theatre.

A cast of five played a large variety of roles, the male world of the office and the cockpit flanked by two vertical beds representing the female world of home and intimacy.

The production sold out in Den Helder, playing to 130 people a night who regularly gave the production a standing ovation.

Night Flight was one of MUZtheater’s most ambitious productions to date and set a precedent for creating a large-scale site work every two years.

Marian Buijs, de Volkskrant

Under the direction of the British director Ben Harrison the text is turned into a suggeestive production, also thanks to the design of Leo de Nijs which creates images with great simplicity…all the ingredients for a considered, imaginative production are here. . .an adventurous production that aims to achieve far more than simply entertain.

Isabella Steenbergen, NRC Handelsblad

Director Ben Harrison takes us to the South America of the Twenties. Heroic years. Years where the borders of time and space were overcome by new, shimmering technology. Riviere, brilliantly played by Bram Kwekkeboom, is a central figure of this time…Ben Harrison, since last year associated with het MUZtheater, shows the flip-side of heroism in an inventive, visual manner.