Review of “Cookies”
Cookies is a trailer show. This means the audience is about the size of a class,
and the acting happens right in front of you. Toneelgroep Oostpool organized the play, directed by
Joeri Vos.
Cookies start off very simple: Kat and Mark, a young couple who just started living together in a
ultramodern house. They are glued to their mobile phones, and talk about some daily small things.
Mark then says he saw a girl with a birthmark on her forhead at a café, which he quite liked. Within a
few minutes she is actually in the house, but Kat can’t see her. Mark slowly goes crazy as the girl
starts talking to him and the story
becomes harder to follow. In
between sudden blurts of
advertisements, price labels
everywhere, time shifts,
technology and humorous
conversations appear.
What is real? Who am I? What can I
become? Are all questions central
to Cookies. The play uses real-life
cookies as a way to ask these. It is
too short to make this entirely
clear, however. The piece unfolds
very quickly, and this makes it hard to follow.
A question left open is: why cookies? The play shows the ‘danger’ of cookies very well, and makes it
funny. It adds to the entertainment.
The acting is great; it is funny, the actors understand their roles well and don’t flinch for a single
second. The dialogues are as quick and absurd as the play itself.
The play is worth watching, as the great acting and humor are well-worth the time. But the story, nor
a message (is it there?), will not be resting in your memory for a long time.
Rolf van der Hulst