Me and Mr. Jansen

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Theater

One day Raphael Rodan comes across a black and white photo from 1943. In the photo he recognizes his house, in the heart of Amsterdam. He also sees in the photo how an old couple is dragged out of the house by men in what appear to be white coats. They turn out to be SS officers and the image in the photo is an image of a raid.

Is there such a thing as innocence and can we choose for ourselves which role we take on in a narrative? Does a person learn from history or are we doomed to repeat our mistakes? What lessons can we learn from history? As Raphael delves deeper into the past, he comes across Mr. Jones; a hairdresser who lived on the ground floor at the time. He decides to talk to him about forgotten secrets, distant memories and forgotten sins.

‍After the great success 'Donkey's Jaw', Raphael once again joins forces with comedian, actor, director and theater maker Titus Tiel Groenstege. Together they make 'Me and Mr. Jansen' into a piece that transcends both theater and storytelling.

‍Raphael Rodan (1980, Jerusalem, Israel) Raphael is an award-winning theatre maker and storyteller. Since moving to Amsterdam, he has created a few hit storytelling shows like: the winner of Amsterdam fringe 2017 My Father Held a Gun, about the nature of war. His work has received international recognition, playing in theatres and festivals all over Europe. Apart from writing and performing, Raphael also teaches storytelling, In 2014, together with Farnoosh Farnia and Sahand Sahebdivani, he created The Mezrab Storytelling School. Since 2018 he has been working as the Artistic Director of the Amsterdam Storytelling Festival together with Sahebdivani. The vision of the festival is to link the ancient art of storytelling with today’s most burning questions.