The Irish group Brokentalkes revives an Ireland of a different era by looking towards the now and next
Brokentalkers are a Theatre Company who, in their own words, “devise, direct and produce original and accessible live performance”. Formed in 2001, the group is participating in this year’s NEW PLAYS FROM EUROPE festival with a piece entitled ‘The Blue Boy’, following a successful run at last year’s Dublin Theatre Festival. (more…)
The comedy “Burundanga” performed by Spanish theatre group SALA FLYHARD deals with the terrorist organisation ETA in the surrounding of a living room
Berta suddenly finds out more than she wanted to know (Photo: Lena Obst).
Jordi Galceran’s play “Burundanga”, as well as its stage realisation by Jordi Casanovas offers a coherent interpretation of one of the most burning problems in our contemporary society – the question of terrorism. With the help of humour and satire the performance contradicts the brutal archetypes of terrorist organisations and how they are represented by the media.
The pregnant Berta (Roser Blanch) wants to know whether her boyfriend was always faithful to her and is advised by her friend Sílvia to try out the truth serum “Burundanga”. Suddenly she finds out more than she wanted to know: Her boyfriend Manel (Pablo Lammers) was not only (more…)
Those former artists of the Communist regime, who are still working today, are trying in vain to dress their muses in new colours. Studiously, they invoke their cultural and national identity. They draw on those collective sensibilities (more…)
When, in 509 AD, democracy was reintroduced in Athens, the polis was faced with the problem of needing larger space for the two institutions – the people’s assembly and the theatre! I like to emphasize this detail from the history, not only (more…)
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Theatres are doing what the whole country should have being doing right from the beginning of the crisis. They are cutting costs.
Since the beginning of the crisis, book sales have been down by around 40 percent. Cinemas have lost 25 percent of their audiences. Most restaurants are empty on weekdays. (more…)
The vast majority of fixed theatre houses in Hungary are subsidised; mainly by regional administrations, but there are also several city theatres. I have to say that all these theatres are having a hard time. Among some of the leading politicians, (more…)
The classical structure of a play, „beginning, middle, end“ is no longer credible if you want to talk about current reality. Today, when the world has become so much more complex, it would be downright obscene to use traditional structures, since they tend to simplify everything. Just imagine talking of Palestine in a traditional structure; (more…)
I’m going to the theatre. What else should I do? The play is called something like “Jocasta at forty”. It’ll probably be some modern, experimental play, one of those that allegedly amend myths. Haven’t they had enough of Oedipus, Jocasta and their drivel? (more…)
Often, the real appears through “documents” in dramatic writing, in between narration and structure.
The “Recapture of the Real“ in contemporary theatre has been associated above all with performance. This turns the real into a body, into presence, a blurring of the boundaries between subject and object, and brings with it the physical investigation of what cannot be represented (violence, death …). And the text? Can it underline the real in contemporary drama? (more…)
The emergence of new, small performance spaces with about 40-80 seats has perceptibly vitalized Turkey’s theatre scene in the first decade of the 21st century.
The spatial limitations of these venues have required a rigorous investigation of the possibilities of theatre directing. More interdisciplinary projects or an increased use of technology could be feasible. Bringing street jargon and everyday violence onto the stage enables the theatre to assume a societal function. Young playwrights use strategies like collage techniques, time leaps and (more…)
among engaged people who i often find in a theatre context. Theatre enriches my life with new impressions, stimulates my imagination and broadens my spiritual horizon. As an educated and critical spectator, I am interested in a socially engaged theatre, a theatre which is concerned about actual and social issues as well as their innovative stage visualisation. I am interested in theatre which would take on the role of a critic glossarist of our society. (more…)
Sometimes it is hard to be a Norwegian. But, Norway is probably the only country in Europe which doesn’t have a substantial debt problem at the moment, or at least the only country whose cash problem is to have too much cash and no political guts to use it sensibly, but. I say but. There’s always a but. And the but is often connected to something with identity. Who the fuck wants a Norwegian identity? (more…)
New ideas will not emerge in theatres where the audience is dressed in finery and doesn’t wish to be touched by anything.
The theatre director, as the one who chiefly shapes the theatrical form, also becomes its author. Through his artistic language, he formulates an original statement, his perspective on certain processes, relationships and on the world around him. As a result, he increasingly takes on the role of an autonomous artist. This is often criticized; (more…)
The winter of 2012. Once again, I’m working at the theatre. My latest play, “Twenty thousand pages” is in rehearsal at the Schauspielhaus Zürich. Lars-Ole Walburg is directing. We talk about scenes, cuts, transpositions, about too much and too little dramaturgy, rhythm, psychology and the necessary distance between actor and text. We act like crazy, while the world outside is really acting crazy. (more…)
There is a strong wave of feminism on the stages , represented by both male and female feminists.
Staging gender has for several years been the most discussed topic in the theatre in Sweden and the most popular theme, I would say, in new work. A discussion both about gender per se and the representation of gender on stage. In the big cities, that is. (more…)
Even today, Europe doesn’t know the Balkans, but neither do the Balkans know Europe. Because we write and think in different alphabets.
And it is significant that the toponym Balkans is of Turkish origin. While Western Europe is unifying, we in the East are practicing separatism. In this context, my Ukrainian colleague Irvanets once said: “Before Western Europe unified, they went through a process of proper distancing themselves from each other. That is still in store for us.” This means that we will first become a part of Europe and only then will we begin to distance ourselves from it. (more…)
The most interesting current development in Finnish theatre is taking place in playwriting that is booming.
One reason for this certainly lies in a consistent education of dramatists at the theatre academy. This brought forth and strengthened a tradition which has made it possible that whole theatre generations are born even before graduation. Writers, directors, actors, choreographers, dancers, designers of sound and lighting, sets and costumes are brought together in joint productions and find a group of colleagues there, at the same time creating their own sense of theatre and their own aesthetics.
This is not always simple. It takes a continual balancing and a lot of diplomacy for the system to function. Every now and then, the system is questioned. In someone who is used to the traditional relationship between master and apprentice, it provokes resistance: What can be the result of the blind leading the blind? In practice, however, students are always supported by working theatre professionals, so that the theatre of generations is always in a close dialogue with makers of earlier generations.
The third and maybe most important phenomenon, however, didn’t become apparent at the place of writing. Slowly, directors, critics and audiences learned to read new plays. It is a little strange and frustrating that those devices and structures which writers have used for decades are now seen as the tremendous accomplishments of a young generation. But: better late than never. There is a huge difference between considering contemporary drama to be difficult and unappealing, and the attempt to change the theatre so that new plays can be written and produced.
Translation: Elena Krüskemper.
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Before a character enters the stage with its luggage of words, the author has to seize these words. The author takes hold of words whenever he wants and gives them to whom he likes. But are we really sure of this? Of the author “giving” words?
Personally, I would rather say that I impose words and revoke them. The character exists only as a linguistic identity and cannot speak for itself. It doesn’t have a voice of its own. It has nothing to say. (more…)
„No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent“ – this quote, noted on the flyleaf of my school notebook, served as a dam against floods of loneliness for a long time. Now the image has resurfaced in the contemplation of theatrical landscapes.
Spotlights draw islands onto the boards that represent the world; illuminated bodies flood spectators sitting in the dark with their words. Are they stranded, have they found footing on these islands and do they tell of their attempts at rescue, flailing their arms and throwing message-filled bottles into space? Is the whole theatre an intoxicated ship, searching for land, while outside dark estimates are raging? (more…)
Mostly, I wasted time on things that have little to do with art. But if theatre is a living thing, it should be equally alive every single time: the aliveness of the theatre performance cannot be measured by one actor coughing in a different spot during different performances…
I often use this old adage, or better, paraphrase it and use it as my personal motto in researching and creating theatre. The type of theatre with endless rehearsals that are nothing more than the preparation for a final revelation no longer interests me. What bothers me is exactly that: the theatre processes, rehearsals… always orientated towards the product (more…)
When I started the political satire programme “An hour of laughter” two years ago, I thought nothing of playing the buffoon.
It has been noted that I have an inclination towards exhibitionism – yes, that is one dimension of my “role”. I don’t mind disguising myself. I guess that this is part of a sense of alienation, of an inability to really participate in everything that has occurred in my life. I still feel like a young man of 25 or 30, who woke up with a feeling of longing for death and hasn’t been able to shake this nightmare ever since. (more…)
What is most important for me as a playwright is that I am going through a writer’s crisis. I know that something has ended. Certain ways of writing – of expressing myself through writing – have been over-explored.
I keep asking myself what I am looking for now? What I believe in? Who I am? I am not so young anymore. The enthusiasm and happiness that accompanied me at the beginning of my writing (and career) are gone. (more…)
Not a jester, however, who insolently confronts the king with his bad deeds and weaknesses, but a servile jester.
At a writers’ residency of the “Maison d’Europe et d’Orient” in Paris (November – December 2011), I worked on a comedy which is treating the Kosovo’s declaration of independence three years ago. As in the end of some movies, when they show the funniest outtakes from the shoot; similarly, I wanted to show this doubtlessly great historic event – the birth of Europe’s youngest state – from a different perspective. (more…)
Especially since the beginning of the 21st century, Ukrainian drama has seen a strong surge of activity.
When I began writing plays in the mid 1990s, Ukraine was going through a difficult period of economic and social transition. Only very few of the formerly leading playwrights were able to make it into the new era. There was no theatre reform and hardly any performances of new Ukrainian plays, since their funding had been abolished. And so dramaturgy became a free art, (more…)
The new Estonian Theatre and its speechlessness
A few years ago, playwright’s theatre became fashionable in Estonia. This may have been because even though quite some years had passed since the singing revolution, or rather Estonia’s escape from the Soviet Union, nothing at all had changed in our theatre:
Directors directed, actors acted and the state contributed – as far as possible – the necessary funding. (more…)
Berlin’s de-constructivists, Hamlet and the post-dramatic null space in Copenhagen
It is the basic task of contemporary playwriting to understand and challenge modern directors‘ theatre. There is, however, a growing alienation between the two, which leads to an equally great rift between traditional and progressive theatre. If directors’ theatre is deadlocked into interpretations of the classics or into a post-dramatic null space, this impedes the development of the theatre (more…)
All audiences are like guests in a restaurant, waiting to be served. They know everything, they’ve seen it all. Their taste buds are finely tuned. They are picky and demanding.
I have spent most of my life in the theatre. When I was five, I watched my mother being killed on the stage at the end of a melodrama in which she was the romantic heroine. She simulated death, she imitated it, she didn’t describe it or talk about it, she showed it. (more…)
(A small essay on writing and silence)
The artist disappears behind his work. That’s what they say. We keep reading this sentence: The artist disappears behind his work. So the author disappears behind his text. Off he goes.
He no longer exists; only the text is left, standing on the page: (more…)
… whose system is increasingly endangered by economic forces
Theatre in Italy is a travelling theatre: Plays are shown in Rome or Milan for no more than a month, then they tour the cities and villages, for one or two nights each. This fantastic system dates back to a remote past and makes it possible for provincial theatres to present grand shows with famous actors and important directors. (more…)
There are many languages in the theatre of Luxembourg – except Luxembourgish.
This year’s repertory of the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg includes, plays not only in German, French and English, but also productions in Polish and Dutch – which begs the question why there isn’t a single play in the Luxembourgish language. This is all the more puzzling since there has been a great variety and growing importance of the Luxembourgish literature in recent decades. (more…)
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