PLEASE DON’T MAKE LOVE TO ME, I’M EXHAUSTED

In Please don’t make love to me, I’m exhausted, everyone tries to survive by chasing small moments of happiness. A clown sits in an interrogation room, staring ahead in tragic silence — though that might just be because his makeup has started to run. Stubbornly, he keeps folding balloon animals while the questions keep coming. A merman drags himself forward, gasping for breath, longing for drops of water that will allow him to feel like a fish in water one last time. Meanwhile, two stand-up comedians desperately try to draw a laugh from an audience that stares back at them with icy indifference.

DeRonde/Deroo, formed by Tom de Ronde (28) and Nick Deroo (36), creates cinematic, physical, and acrobatic theatre. As a spectator, you are immersed in surreal, absurdist dream worlds with their own rules and logic. The body is always their point of departure. They continuously explore the possibilities and impossibilities of the body, searching for a poetic and unpredictable form of expression.

In 2025, DeRonde/Deroo received the Wim Bary Stipendium from the Cultuurfonds, an award recognising their promising artistic oeuvre. Their youth production Hou Vast (7+; 2026) was also met with critical acclaim: the production received four stars in de Volkskrant and was named Critics’ Choice by Theaterkrant. Their site-specific performance It really hurts when your head hits the concrete has been presented more than 200 times nationally and internationally, receiving multiple awards and widespread critical praise.