Buikzwam - Kompagnie Kistemaker

Theatermaker Karlijn Kistemaker visited her GP 17 times in her life with severe abdominal pain. Each time she was told she was exaggerating, had a low pain threshold, or simply needed to take a paracetamol.

After years of dismissive gestures, painkillers and diets, she happened to read an article in which Birgit Schuurman describes her diagnosis of the chronic disease endometriosis. Karlijn receives the same diagnosis shortly after - and an overly quick doctor asks unsuspectingly: "Oh, and do you still want children?" What follows is a journey through tissue landscapes, blobs of cold gel, hormone injections and the ever-recurring question: do I want a child, or do I want it to work?

1 in 10 people with female sex characteristics has endometriosis - almost 500,000 people in the Netherlands and 200 million worldwide, more than people with rheumatism or asthma. How can this disease be so unknown? And why did it take 24 years before Karlijn received a diagnosis?

In her solo Buikzwam she tells her experiences in a dry-comic way. Theaterkrant wrote: "Buikzwam is a small, important performance about a big subject. A performance that deserves a large audience." The performance lasts 70 minutes.