Hilarity with clenched fists
In December 2026, the actors’ group Wunderbaum will perform the first Dutch-language performance of the work People with Problems of author Sybille Berg. In this production, Berg's scalding tale of a woman who fearlessly attacks the status quo, even if it means bombings, communes or a trip to Mars, shines in all its glory.
“A text by Ms Berg for one person and several voices. Or otherwise.” With these words, Sibylle Berg begins their tetralogy Mensen met problemen. Resolute and desperate. A division of roles that is nothing of the sort. Berg is a German/Swiss novelist and playwright. Since 2024, they have been a member of the European Parliament, where they “attempt within their very limited means to find out about upcoming surveillance measures, give scientists a platform and fight poverty and discrimination. And to explain their vision of a new social system after the peaceful abolition of capitalism.”
Berg’s characteristic honesty, radicality and wry humour resound in Mensen met problemen. In four parts, we discover the life of a first-person narrator who mercilessly dissects society but refuses to accept anything. What should we be fighting for? How much should we sacrifice? What can still be saved? Berg’s heartfelt, furious text is peppered with big questions, but also with humour. The result is a moving, urgent and funny text. “There can be joy in killing joy”, as Sara Ahmed claims — and so does Wunderbaum.
The text is more than a cynical dissection of society. You can only be angry about things you really care about
Regular Wunderbaum actors Wine Dierickx and Maartje Remmers will share the stage with Bavo Buys and Laura De Geest. The Flemish-Dutch company often starts with improvisation and regularly writes its own texts — such as Bulk, which makes the monotonous excess of late capitalism tangible, complete with music and
a view of ships in port. The actors also work with external writers, such as Arnon Grunberg for The Future of Sex and Annelies Verbeke for productions including Wunderbaum speelt live (online gaat het mis) and Daar gaan we weer (white male privilege).
Mensen met problemen is based on a play that had already been written. The four-part drama was thoroughly overhauled by Koen Tachelet, with the help of Remmers and Dierickx. Although originally written in a different language and context, Berg’s text felt very ‘Wunderbaumy’, the two actors say. “This text is about us, about now — and also transcends that, we felt,” says Dierickx. “It is not a nice little fable: some of the concerns that come up are rooted in oppressive Western privilege, and the main character is not a heroine who has always got it under control. She’s not a peaceable person. But her rage also offers hope in a way: as if you’re already engaging in the struggle with all that fearless writing. That’s what makes the script so invigorating.”
As Rosa Luxemburg once wrote: “The most revolutionary thing one can do is always to proclaim loudly what is happening” — is that what you mean?
Remmers: “The text is more than a cynical dissection of society. You can only be angry about things you really care about. That makes the text the opposite of indifferent. The key question in the play is: what are we fighting for? We see a woman growing up: in the first part she is twenty, and in the last part she is closer to our age. Gradually, a kind of pragmatism creeps in, as you get older. But the woman in the play doesn’t accept the state of affairs. She doesn’t stop searching for liberation, and doesn’t lapse into pragmatism. That's what makes her resistance, and this script, so compelling.”
Dierickx: “There’s passion in the play, warmth, which makes you think: life does have value. The main character avoids clichés about age: the idea that youthful swagger automatically gets watered down as you get older, for example. She just keeps on calling out the things she doesn’t agree with, sometimes to the point of really banging on about them. She finds a language for them, desperately searching for a way out, for a way to cope with the world as she sees it. This search is not harmless: she hurts others along the way; she’s messed up and dangerous. Dangerous to herself, as well. She teeters on the edge of ‘not being able to take it anymore’, but she’s still lashing out, desperate but unrelenting. This undaunted search offers a kind of comfort: it expresses a refusal to accept the way things are, the mediocre, a life without meaning.”
Another thread is the tension between individual power and collective organisation. There is a kind of loneliness lurking in the characters — and a longing for connection.
Dierickx: “The script begins with ‘for one or several voices’. That’s more or less the point. We have chosen to perform it with four actors. Sometimes the focus will be on an individual character, sometimes on the group, sometimes on thoughts that transcend the characters. This longing for a collective, for connection, leads to the main character’s plan to live in a commune, with her friends and their children, for example. But then her friends back out, discouraged by practical considerations. In each part of the play, the main character seeks a different way out of the world she is criticising: violence, a commune, a colony on Mars. All her attempts fail, but the compulsion to act remains.”
You are presenting a four-hour marathon of a play in times when we constantly hear alarmist reports about our fragmented attention spans. Is that scary?
Remmers: “Clearly, it’s always a bit nerve-wracking to do a tetralogy like this. Sometimes I also think we’d make life much easier for ourselves if we just condensed the text into a pithy hour and a half. But then we’d lose that layered, age-related aspect, and the richness of the text.”
Dierickx: “A marathon like this almost becomes a happening. It’s something you do with the audience. You go through something together. Ideally, the fieriness of the piece becomes contagious, something you take home with you: the desire to stay true to what you believe is important for the world and yourself. We hope you find strength in the play. That you share the rage that sparks resistance.”
