Kuijer Guus - The book of everything: the play

R ICHARD T ULLOCH is one of Australias leading writers of plays, screenplays and books for young audiences. His more than fifty plays include Hansel and Gretel A Tale of Our Times, The Happy Prince, Carnival of the Animals, Stella and the Moon Man, Lulie the Iceberg (all for Theatre of Image), Year 9 are Animals, Hating Alison Ashley and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Fish (a Sydney Festival production that also played on Broadway in New York). His plays have earned him four Australian Writers Guild AWGIE Awards. He has performed his one-man storytelling show Storyman thousands of times in theatres, schools and libraries around the world. He has written over 150 episodes of Bananas in Pyjamas and contributed scripts to numerous other television series. He has had over 35 childrens books published, including Stories from Our House, Danny in the Toybox, Beastly Tales, Twisted Tales and the very popular Weird Stuff novels.

His screenplay for the animated film Ferngully II The Magical Rescue was nominated for Best Script at the US Annie Awards in 1998. He also now works as a travel writer, regularly published in the Sun-Herald newspaper and on his blog: www.richardtulloch.wordpress.com. AUTHORS NOTE I now count myself lucky to live in Amsterdam, my wifes home town, for about half of each year. I love its beauty and culture, work at learning its language and admire its long history of openness and tolerance. Shame about the weather, but you cant have everything. I was there when Kim Carpenter, Artistic Director of Theatre of Image, emailed me and asked if I knew anything about a writer called Guus Kuijer.

Kim had just read The Book of Everything, and loved it. Of course I knew about Guus Kuijer; hes won many Dutch literature awards, and in the Netherlands, hes familiar to everyone who has been a child since his first books about a girl called Madelief appeared in the 1970s. When I read The Book of Everything, I loved it too. It is remarkable how a slim book can say so much about the difficult topics of facing fear and violence, finding strength and happiness, and questioning religious beliefs. These themes may not be the usual stuff of childrens entertainment, but Kuijer never shies away from complexity. In The Book of Everything, Kuijer tells a story from the time of his childhood, set in Amsterdam as the city emerged from the trauma of German occupation during World War II. In The Book of Everything, Kuijer tells a story from the time of his childhood, set in Amsterdam as the city emerged from the trauma of German occupation during World War II.

Amsterdam was spared the bombing that destroyed central Rotterdam and missed the heavy fighting which left towns like Arnhem in ruins. But most of Amsterdams large Jewish population was deported to concentration camps, while others went into hiding. Anne Frank is the most famous of these. Her family and thousands like them depended on the bravery of ordinary Dutch people like Mrs van Amersfoort in this story. I dont know the details of Kuijers childhood, but I do know that he was born during the war, grew up in a religious family and that, like Thomas, he gradually came to question the ethics of stories in the Bible. For instance, was it fair for God to punish all the Egyptians for something their pharaoh did? If God really was an all-powerful and loving father, why did he let his son Jesus be crucified? Children do think about these things.

As a child I loved animals, and wondered why God drowned most of them and only saved a few on Noahs Ark. If it is appropriate to tell children these stories, and Im sure it is, we should encourage them to consider when and why they were written, to question how they relate to their own lives and to form their own opinions about their meaning. Melbourne writer John Nieuwenhuizens excellent English translation of the novel The Book of Everything has been much acclaimed, but for this stage adaptation I worked from the Dutch original. I have tried to remain true to Kuijers powerful story and elegant language, but there will be differences between the play and the novel. I hope you will want to read both. Richard Tulloch I cant remember that God was ever a topic of conversation for us children. Richard Tulloch I cant remember that God was ever a topic of conversation for us children.

I mean in the street when there were no adults around. That is remarkable, when you consider that our lives were saturated with God But in the street, that whole pious world disappeared over the horizon. We were cowboys and Indians, Ivanhoe and Robin Hood, cops and robbers, but never Jesus. My father heartily looked forward to the second coming, and prayed regularly and fervently, Come Lord Jesus, come soon! And I remember that as a child I thought, Yes, but not until after my birthday. I cant remember any child who saw anything in the afterlife, because to look forward to that is to look down on the life that we have here on earth. Guus KuijerFIRST PRODUCTION This adaptation of The Book of Everything was first produced by Company B Belvoir and Kim Carpenters Theatre of Image at Belvoir St Upstairs Theatre, Sydney, on 2 January 2010, with the following cast:

MARGOT	Alison Bell
FATHER / BUMBITER	Peter Carroll
MRS VAN AMERSFOORT	Julie Forsyth
MUSICIAN	Iain Grandage
MOTHER	Claire Jones
AUNTY PIE	Deborah Kennedy
JESUS	John Leary
ELIZA	Yael Stone
THOMAS	Matthew Whittet

Director, Neil Armfield Set & Costume Designer, Kim Carpenter Composer, Iain Grandage Lighting Designer, Nigel Levings Choreographer, Julia Cotton Sound Designer, Steve Francis Assistant Director, Eamon Flack Stage Manager, Mark Lowrey Assistant Stage Manager, Sophie Baker CHARACTERS THOMAS KLOPPER , aged 9, nearly 10 MARGOT KLOPPER , aged 16 ELIZA WITH THE LEATHER LEG , aged 16 MOTHER FATHER BUMBITER MRS VAN AMERSFOORT AUNTIE PIE JESUS And also: CHILDREN, CHURCH CONGREGATION, READING OUT LOUD CLUB GUESTS SETTING Amsterdam, summer, 1951. Guus KuijerFIRST PRODUCTION This adaptation of The Book of Everything was first produced by Company B Belvoir and Kim Carpenters Theatre of Image at Belvoir St Upstairs Theatre, Sydney, on 2 January 2010, with the following cast:

MARGOT	Alison Bell
FATHER / BUMBITER	Peter Carroll
MRS VAN AMERSFOORT	Julie Forsyth
MUSICIAN	Iain Grandage
MOTHER	Claire Jones
AUNTY PIE	Deborah Kennedy
JESUS	John Leary
ELIZA	Yael Stone
THOMAS	Matthew Whittet

Director, Neil Armfield Set & Costume Designer, Kim Carpenter Composer, Iain Grandage Lighting Designer, Nigel Levings Choreographer, Julia Cotton Sound Designer, Steve Francis Assistant Director, Eamon Flack Stage Manager, Mark Lowrey Assistant Stage Manager, Sophie Baker