Verse drama · Full text
The Demolition of Love
A Tragedy in Five Acts
Set in the Low Countries, in the present age. After the manner of William Shakespeare.
For Emma —
who called his name a hundred times and meant it every time.
For Cecilia —
who loved completely, wrote poems in the dark, and remained.
Read the play
PROLOGUE
Irving Berlinhof, Utrecht. Before the play begins.
Before we meet Cecilia in love, we must meet her in survival. The stage is bare. A single light. Cecilia speaks to the audience.
Single movement
ACT I
THE ENCOUNTER
In which two wounded souls find each other, a child skates through a forest, and love begins.
3 scenes
ACT II
THE KINGDOM
In which love is built, daily and completely. She writes poems for him in the dark. He calls her his wife. Everyone believes it. For a season — it is magnificently true.
4 scenes
ACT III
THE UNRAVELLING
In which the wounds beneath the love begin to speak. In which a man accuses the woman who loves him of the very things he himself is doing. In which she answers every accusation with openness and he calls her the master of turning things around.
7 scenes
ACT IV
THE DESTRUCTION
In which a king abdicates the kingdom he was freely given. In which love dismantles its own architecture with careful, ordinary hands.
5 scenes
ACT V
THE RECKONING
In which the house is finished and the woman remains. In which a man sits alone with what he chose. In which a poet writes her final poem and sends it into the silence.
6 scenes
EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE
Both sides visible — Maanzaadstraat and Almere. Cecilia in her doorway. Gijsbert at his window. 36 minutes apart. Both present. Both still.
Single movement
Dramatis personae
- Gijsbert
- Prince of Almere. Fifty. Brilliant, wounded, fatal. A man who sees himself clearly and cannot stop. He was in bloom once. He dismantled it himself. His recurring line: Het komt nu niet goed uit.
- Cecilia
- A woman made to love him. Strong and fragile both. A poet — she wrote six poems for him while loving him, and one final poem when he left. Always shy when their eyes met.
- Emma
- Cecilia’s daughter. Seven. She inline skates and plants in gardens and called Gijs’s name a hundred times. She knows he is the boss.
- Quintin
- Gijsbert’s son. Twenty-one. Who runs the kingdom.
- The Father
- Gijsbert’s father. Who loved Emma as his own granddaughter.
- The Stepmother
- Who held her hand when she arrived.
- Angelique
- A ghost. His ex-wife. The betrayal of 2009 that haunts everything.
- Khanh
- Another ghost. Emma’s father. Eight years of emotional abuse. He threw them out with a court order, cancelled the visa, and was driven mad that Gijsbert had his keys.
- The Friends
- The boys of the university reunion. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of Almere.
The scene is Utrecht, Amsterdam, Almere, London, Paris, Maarssen, Keukenhof, Monaco. The time is April 2025 to May 2026.
The wound is ancient. The love was real. She wrote poems in the dark. The house is finished.
Disclaimer
A work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue in this play — and in the poems and other writing published on this site — are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, to real events, or to actual places is entirely coincidental and is not intended by the author.