ट्रिविया

Doesburg was known as a director who could push his actors to great heights. He said about his love for actors in the newspaper "De Volkskrant". 'I like actors. Regardless of their quirks and instructions, they are sensitive, fluent people, with a sense of humor and a rich imagination. The vulnerability that results from this blend of properties often thaws me.

His directing is characterized by meticulous choreography, quickly edited scenes, minimalist scenography and a blackly humorous view of human tragedy.

After leaving The Hague, Doesburg directed performances for independent producers such as Senf, Hummelinck Stuurman and DeLaMar Producties. In total he was involved in more than seventy theater productions.

He was director and artistic director at the National Theater in The Hague for more than 20 years. Doesburg started at the Het Nationale Toneel in 1993, with Decadence by Steven Berkoff.

Ever since he graduated from the Amsterdam directing course in 1988, Doesburg stormed the theater field in a tumultuous manner. His intended graduation performance The Dirt, the City and the Death of Rainer Werner Fassbinder caused a lot of commotion: Jewish demonstrators prevented the performance due to the allegedly anti-Semitic nature of the play and actor Jules Croiset pretended to have been kidnapped in protest. Ultimately, Doesburg graduated with Harold Pinter's Deception. Novellist Harry Mulisch would dedicate in 2000 his Book Week Gift The Theater, the Letter and the Truth (Het theater, de brief en de waarheid) to the affair.

At the National Theatre, Doesburg directed numerous classical and modern plays, including Hamlet (William Shakespeare, 1988), Blasted (Sarah Kane, 1999), King Lear (Shakespeare, 2001), and book adaptations such as Elementaire Deeltjes (based on the novel of the same name by 'Michel Houellebecq, 2005) and Tirza (based on the novel by Arnon Grunberg, 2010).

Johan Doesburg was a Dutch theatre director and play writer.

He suffered from lung cancer and chose euthanasia.

Doesburg studied at the Academy of Theatre and Dance where he graduated in 1988.

Doesburg said goodbye to the National Theatre in 2015 with the play Genesis (a 6-hour marathon performance, based on the first book of the Bible). The critics described it as 'grand and compelling theater, an exclamation point behind an impressive career'. Doesburg was appointed Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion upon his departure.