Dopamine

"Tim Oelbrandt's Dopamine, like a theatrical Trainspotting (choose life!), combines nouvelle magic, queer cabaret, and bondage."
Liv Laveyne

Dopamine is the story of a man consumed by the digital world
and ends up in an obscure nightmare where the boundaries between dream and reality blur. Where gravity doesn't exist and objects have a life of their own. Impressive magic brings this young man's schizophrenia to life and transports the audience to a world of addiction, loneliness, and the endless search for connection, lust, and love. The audience is greeted by a mysterious Madonna figure reminiscent of a character from a Tim Burton film. She holds open a gate of midnight blue satin and invites the audience to enter her world. There, the audience sees a faceless figure sitting at a table. On the table lies a lifeless face and a smoking cigarette. Slowly, the figure comes to life and puts his face back on. The audience watches the performance from up close, almost voyeuristically. For once, the audience is the proverbial fly in the room. The beginning of a visual journey that sketches the lives of many anonymous individuals behind closed doors. This new theatre production by Tim Oelbrandt combines illusionism and visual theatre. An immersive event, a theatrical installation, a sensory experience, designed for the theatre or large, darkened spaces. The design incorporates numerous references to art history: from interpretations of a Madonna figure and a Pietà to a staging of the famous painting The Nightmare by Johann Heinrich Füssli. Recognizable images from our art history and the alienating nature of our society are combined.

Dries Notelteirs graduated as an actor from RITCS in Brussels in 2018. He has appeared in productions including Show by BRONKS, Woestzoeker by Theater Antigone & Theater Artemis, and Do You Wanna Play by KVS and Mars. In 2021 he took his first steps as a writer and theater maker with the youth performance 5 kilo Pascal (BRONKS and Spinrag Festival).