The Second Woman: a dizzying 24-hour performance

The Second Woman by Nat Randall and Anna Breckon is an experimental play questioning gender roles and power dynamics through an astonishing celebration of unscripted human interaction. Embodying a hybrid of cinema, theatre, and improvisation, the act spills over 24 hours, within which one scene is repeated precisely a hundred times. Touring from the UK to Canada to Taiwan, the show finally lands in Amsterdam for an unmissable performance starring Georgina Verbaan.

The scene in question starts with submerging the audience into the setting: a man and a woman coming to a demise of their romantic relationship, as the passion between them has dissipated. The woman, played by Verbaan, sits down and awaits – in front of her, a hundred strangers take the role of her partner each scene. Her counterparts – cis-men, trans men, non-binary persons – were chosen from Amsterdam’s local community, and meet Verbaan for the first time on-stage. Over the 10 minutes of each improvised scene, a space for genuine vulnerability, conflict, frustration, and intimacy unfolds live in front of the audience. The looping nature of the piece mirrors the cycle of relationships, evoking the feeling of insanity associated with facing romantic uncertainty. A celebration of physical and emotional endurance, each iteration gets more and more addictive, as the actors incessantly reach for a climax, a resolution…

Aesthetically, the performance references from 70s American indie cinema and melodramas, offering a wittingly subversive take on archetypal representations of women. Run by an all-female and non-binary crew of managers, coordinators, camera and sound operators, the show further builds up a community whose vision uproots the male gaze. Both performed live and screened at Pathé Tuchinsky in parallel, The Second Woman is a one-of-a-kind spectacle that is born in the moment and only lives in that moment – don’t miss your chance to witness this unfeigned energy exchange.