MEAT_RECITAL I

Worldpremiere between Neubaugasse and Kirchengasse, on the sidewalks, in shops and display windows, around the Ulrichsplatz and in the BUTCHERY (Kircheng. 44, 1070 Wien)

World Premiere of texts by Margit Hahn (A) & petschinka (A)

 

Premiere: 24.09.2004 20:00

Performances: 29.9, 30.9., 1.Okt., 6.-8., 13.-15.10.

Start: 8 pm

Director: Eva Brenner (A/USA), Corinne Eckenstein (CH), Nicolas Dabelstein (D), petschinka (A)

Dramaturgy: Andreas Kövary (A)

Stage/Installation: Andreas Pamperl (A)

Photos: Rainer Berson (D)

Costume Design: Beatrice Radlinger (A)

Performing artists: Corinne Eckenstein, Birgit C. Krammer (CH), Clemens Matzka (A), Florian Pfeiffer (A), Maren Rahmann (D), Andrea Tiziani (I), Tanja Witzmann (A)

Press and Publicationwork: Anzelini’s Büro, Monika Anzelini (A), monika(at)anzelini.at

Music: Angelicá Castelló (MEX) / Jacques Nobili (F)

Assistance: Isabel Öhlinger (A) / Anna Sonntag (A) / Tine Vogtherr (D)

between Neubaugasse and Kirchengasse, on the sidewalks, in shops and display windows, around the Ulrichsplatz and in the BUTCHERY (Kircheng. 44, 1070 Wien)

MEAT_Recital is a site-specific performance in the public space based on two texts by noted Austrian authors Margit Hahn ("The Upswing is coming!"/"Bald kommt der Aufschwung!") and petschinka ("Carlo Giuliani") and also includes personal statements by the actors about "deregulation" and displacement", a reading of Rosa Luxemburg’s "Letters from the Prison", and a theatrical "Short Theory of GATS" by anti-globalization activist and political scientist Claudia von Werlhof.

The project deals with the various phenomena of the beautiful "new world" and marks the transition to phase 2 of PROJEKT THEATER STUDIO which initiates a new two-year cycle of productions under the titel "NICE TO MEAT YOU! / Scenes from the Age of TERROR & COOLNESS" (2005-2007).

The two play-fragments are staged by the curators of PROJEKT THEATER STUDIO who have recently – after live-threatening cutbacks due to the "Theater Reform" in the cultural department of the City of Vienna – come together and are now presenting themselves as the new artistic team of the BUTCHERY (new space in the 7th district):

Eva Brenner, Artistic Director of the STUDIO, director and actress Corinne Eckenstein, Artistic Director of the group fe/male polaroids, the director of theater turbine, Nicolas Dabelstein, as well as the author-director and painter petschinka (future author-in-residence of the BUTCHERY) and the author/dramaturge Andreas Kövary. Simultaneously the new "Interdiciplinary Ensemble" merges seasoned actors of the STUDIO with well-known guests from Austria and abroad.

MEAT_Recital aims at setting in motion a reflection process about the social status quo and to wake up audience to a recognition of subliminal and floating relationships of processes with the macro-cosmos and the micro-cosmos in a time of total change.

This can be detected either in the sudden disappearance of a healthy Viennese off-off- scene, the closing of dozens of small shops and companies in up til now lively city streets, or the layoff of hundreds of employees in small-management positions of flourishing firms and trusts – these phenomena represent gradual phases of a precarious global process of "deregulation".

It manifests itself in a Europe-wide social downsizing such as "mobbing"-practices at the workplace (as shown in Margit Hahn’s text) or enforced police violence against globalization-critics such as the young demonstrator in petschinka’s play "Carlo Giuliani" (killed in Genova during the G8-Summit in 2001). These process of "deregulation" and "harmonization" could – if broad resistance fails – result in a "barbarization" of the entire social fabric and it is this very danger which the project MEAT_Recital is eager to explore with artistic means

PROJEKT THEATER STUDIO phase 2 – Opening of a virtual BUTCHERY
The move into the new art-space BUTCHERIE - located in the shadow of the cultural megacity "Museum Quarter"in Vienna’s 7th District it invites audience-participation with its large shop-windows to the street - marks the group’s development and a radical new beginning in search of an "avant-garde in the mainstream". Radiating out from the BUTCHERY, interdisciplinary art-projects are to be generated within a four-year-process guided by the signature "Flesh" and signifying a sort of "artistic subsistence" on a regional plane.

Thus, the six-year-long building work of an "experimental theater" will transform into a unique new "Meating Point" – a mixture of "performance-theater", "artistic pub", and cultural center directed towards both the spirit and the senses of the public. Following the question of "which process has emptied the many small shops in the 7th District?", new connections are sought out between art, leisure, entertainment and social co-existence on the local level in order to coalesce with an exploration of the district’s history as well as new social movements. With the goal to attract new audiences, the focus lies on the creation of long-term performative processes and cross-border exchange projects, in particular with artists from new membership countries of the European Community

 

Stations of the Performance

Part I: Lay-Offs
A group of actors is presenting short looped scenes Margit Hahn’s text "The Upswing is coming!" in different windows of empty shops to be seen by all spectators one after the other. The texts manifest "mobbing"-practices in today’s first world corporate environment. A procession incorporating performers and the public will move in concentric circles around the stretch of Vienna’s Burggasse between Neubaugasse and Kirchengasse. And is led by a female prophet with the name "Rosa" – a type of Cassandra-figure and at the same time GATS-theoretician – accompanied by the manager "Mr. Franz", an archetypal Viennese. The two are a strange contemporary couple commenting on the action, each in their own way. Two managers who have just been laid off are having a desperate phone-conversation in the near-by phone-booth on the street. The groups meat again at the local bar "Schnaitl" with its nostalgic flair where a chorus of laid-off managers and secretaries coincides with the reading of prison-letters by Rosa Luxemburg as well as a martial "declaration of war" by the virtual host…

Part II: Nomades
The track is moving in the direction of Ulrich’s place where a chorus of managers dressed in Magritte-like suits take over. The climax of this part is marked by a recitation in Greek-Dadaesque style of Anglophone trend-words stemming from a newest politico-economic canon choreographic on the free staircase behind the church. At the exit of the walking-zone at Kirchengasse the treck comes to a halt to view the tragic death-shots of the young policeman Placanica killing an innocent peaceful demonstrator – Carlo Giuliani – at the G8 summit in Genua.

Part III: Collisions
A coming-together of all dramaturgical threats happens at the new PORJEKT THEATER STUIO-space with the name BUTCHERY; it is dedicated to an ironic performance of petschinka’s play-text, "Carlo Giuliani". Initiated by an electronic sound-installation by the composer, Wolfgang Mitterer, the author mutates into a theatrical figure reciting from his dairy-entries on the very day that "ragazzo" Carlo Giuliani was shot in Genova. The scenario of this deadly encounter between demonstrator and policeman becomes visible behind the author’s back. Witnesses take to the stage and give reports collected by the author, intertwined by reports of actual witnesses giving testimony to their experiences of 2001. A "declaration of war" by a Black-Block-activist meets with the poetic "revenge-monologue" of his bride (a laid-off secretary from Margit Hahn’s play), forming an unexpected finale. This strange "bride & groom"-couple attest to the collision of macro-cosmic and micro-cosmic phenomena continuously produced and re-enacted by our current neo-liberal social order.