LENZ: Katie Cruel + Tos Nieuwenhuizen

LENZ and Frascati Producties present Katie Cruel: “a drone metal murder ballad”. You can catch the musical theatre performance throughout May, but on on the 26th, Katie Cruel will be followed by a concert of legendary drone musician, Tos Nieuwenhuizen. You might have heard Tos’ soaring guitars or wall-of-sound tube amplifiers in his work with SunnO))) and Motorpsyscho.

Katie Cruel is a musical production by LENZ (Erasmus Mackenna, Marit Hooijschuur and Roel Pronk) inspired by the rich tradition of Scottish and Irish murder ballads. Making use of both drone metal music and Scottish folk, in Katie Cruel LENZ create a rough, lonely, tender portrait of a young woman scarred by inter-generational trauma, searching for hope and prepared to go to any lengths to find it.

Tickets for Katie Cruel can be purchased here. There are a limited amount of free tickets for Subbacultcha members. Members can make a reservation by sending an email to mailinglist@subbacultcha.nl with ‘Katie Cruel’ in the subject line + your name in the email. 

Please note: the spoken language in Katie Cruel is Dutch, but the performance on the 26th is subtitled in English.

LENZ – Katie Cruel

Tos Nieuwenhuizen

About LENZ & Katie Cruel
LENZ is a theatre collective consisting of Erasmus Mackenna, Marit Hooijschuur and Roel Pronk. Katie Cruel functions as the second installment of a triptych for the trio, following Sheath and Knife—a worker’s fable about intergenerational trauma, class and self-determination, inspired by Scots murder ballads.

“We started to think of murder ballads as depictions of part of the society we live in, to try and find parallels that way” explains Mackenna. “In the ballads, people are killed for all sorts of reasons, but the two most common are 1.) to emancipate yourself from an oppressor, and 2.) to oppress someone you are jealous of. The idea that struggle is timeless and universal throughout the ages is something that can be soothing. At the same time, it’s exhausting to hear stories from the 10th century sung that describe the same social violence towards the same communities as those that suffer today.”

Katie Cruel follows an unearthing conversation between an ex-CEO and a drone-metal musician, who happen to neighbour one another across the same street. The play is set on a sonic decor of distorted drone music. Claustrophobic, apocalyptic, and yet cathartic when one allows. In their work LENZ cut right in a painful core, exploring inter-generational trauma, hope, and the lengths one will go to achieve relief.