FAM - Hanneke van der Paardt | TAR (Theater a/d Rijn)

With BANG - her award-winning monologue about fear - Hanneke van der Paardt turned her gaze inward. In FAM., she widens that perspective: what happens to the rest of the family when one child is struggling with serious mental health issues?

The performance poses questions rarely asked aloud. Who watches over the brother, the sister, the sibling whose bones are breaking? What do parents fail to see, and where does the anger of their other children go? Is the distinction between 'sick' and 'healthy' really as clear as it seems? Van der Paardt weaves interviews, theory, and personal experience into a performance about a family where one person - willingly or not - draws all the attention, and asks whether that dynamic can change.

Hanneke van der Paardt is an actor, writer, and theatre maker. Her work is autobiographical and known for its sharpness and transparency. She spent eighteen months as part of the ensemble at Theaterhaus Jena under the artistic direction of Acteursgroep Wunderbaum. BANG won the BNG Theaterprijs 2025, the award for emerging theatre talent in the Netherlands; that production will be seen throughout the Netherlands in autumn 2026. Since winter 2026, Van der Paardt has been a resident artist at TAR (Theater aan de Rijn) in Arnhem. She also appears in films and television series and is one of the faces of Club LEES, the VPRO's online book club.

FAM. is her first production at TAR, created in collaboration with Willem de Wolf (De Hoe), who directs the final version. The production is made with support from Oproer and Arnhemse Stadsateliers, with thanks to Ischa den Blanken and Stichting Perceval.