Production 6 in the Cycle

Coproduction with GRAZ 2003 - Cultural Capital of Europe

Premiere: 17.09.2003 20:00

Last Performance: 25.10.2003 20:00

Performances: Performances Graz: 20. and 23. September 2003, 8pm (Literaturhaus)

Performances Vienna: 26. September(premiere), 27. September, 1., 2., 10., 11., 15. to 18. October, 22. to 25. October 2003

 

Director: Eva Brenner (A/USA)

Stage/Installation: Jakob Scheid (A)

Lighting: Walter Lauterer (A)

Dramaturgical Assistance: Renate Ganser (A)

Performing artists: Axel Bagatsch (D), Daniel Kundi (A), Clemens Matzka (A), Maren Rahmann (A), Agnieszka Salamon (A)

Music: Andreas Weixler (A)

Costume Design: PRINZ KRANK (A/A)

Literaturhaus Graz; PROJEKT THEATER STUDIO Vienna

"In harten Schuhen" (In Hard Shoes) is the title of a collection of texts from 1980-83, published in 1999 by Droschl.

The body-theatrical performance is not “drama”, but rather an experimental narrative opera, a happening-performance or space-sound installation with shreds of speech (choruses) and follows the Schwab speech rhythms. The ensemble “improvises” in monologues and spoken choruses following musically visual structures: theater = speech = music. The constituent parts are text, body and space. Movements also leave behind traces of sound.

The sound has three compositional dimensions: 1. Speech, 2. Music, 3. Sound of movements (sound traces). It is in essence a musical-rhythmic work. The biographically based entries from “In harten Schuhen” act as a frame for the action/dramaturgic framework rather than the dramatic work, complimented by quotes from Schwab’s plays.

 

“... as speaker without possibilities one dies.
Nothing remains, than to create a noncommittal join between
the no more spoken and
the never before spoken…”

Werner Schwab, „In harten Schuhen“, p. 16

 

Each of the five performers throws the space into imbalance in that he/she projects his/her language, music, silence, world as if onto an empty screen. In doing so duos, trios, quartets form, a complex weaving of body images, scenic fragments, sounds, words and music create an accessible whole. Live music particles from the ensemble meet modern e-music by the experimental Grazer composer Andreas Weixler, which explores the noise and silence in Schwab’s work as a polyphonic soundtrack – a “rustling” displaced by sounds, partially synchronic, partially asychronic, gliding from space to space.

The performance space in the “Literaturhaus Graz” as well as that of the PROJEKT THEATER STUDIO in Vienna will be transformed into a spatial test arrangement with “life paths” for five performers. A geometric floor formation invites playful changes; the paths of the performers leave traces. The audience sits dispersed throughout the space, no one sees “the entirety”, the performance remains fragmented. Five figures seek a way out of the crisis, the desperation grows, the audience bears witness to a “play-destruction”; the contradictions throw shadows – from “wartime” to “wartime”.

 

Workshop realized in the Atelier Avant Austria in Graz complete the trilogy.

Studio: Atelier Avant Austria, Graz 2003; with friendly support from SKE Fonds and the federal state of Styria

Composition commissioned by
PROJEKT THEATER STUDIO and Thomastik-Infeld