World Premiere

Performance with texts by Heiner Müller, Inge Müller, Michèle Fabien & the Ensemble

At the BUTCHERY & in the public space
Opening: March 27th, 2006, 7 pm

Performances

March 30& 30th and 31st, April 1st & 2nd, 6th-9th, 7 pm
Tickets: € 16/€ 12 red. At the Gasthaus Adlerhof, Burggasse 51, 1070 Vienna
01/ 524 07 38 or office@experimentaltheater.com
No prior ticket sale

Team

Mise-en-Scène:  Eva Brenner (A/USA), Dramaturgy: Barbara Seifert (A), Tragedians: Jakub Palacz (PL), Maren Rahmann (D); Textmashine: Claudia Mader (A); Women’s Chorus: Angélica Castelló (MEX), Steffi Hofer (D), Sibylle Starkbaum (A), Space/Projections: Andreas Pamperl (A) Music: Angélica Castelló, Assistence: Maxie Klein (A), Katka Csanyiova (SK), Graphics/Fotography: Rainer Berson (D) PR & Press relations: Anzelini’s Büro/Monika Anzelini, monika@anzelini.at
Translations: Uta Wagner (B/D, from French), Grazyna Woitzuck (A,PL, to Polish)

The project

The project is Part 2 of „NICE TO MEAT YOU! Scenes from the Age of TERROR & COOLNESS“, Two-Year-Cycle 05-07, Interdisciplinary Theater- & Research Project at the BUTCHERY and in the public space.

"... in the century of Orest and Electra which is upcoming, Ödipus will be a comedy.”– Heiner Müller, Projektion 1975

ÖDIPUS_stories is the development of new socio-theatrical formats which the team of the BUTCHERY is experimenting with since 2004. Under the direction of  Eva Brenner the ensemble is creating ensemble actions and scenes based on  Heiner Müller’s texts about Ödipus.  At the core are his rendering of Friedrich Hölderlin’s drama, "Ödipus Tyrann“ (1966/67) and the commentary from the same time-period, entitled  „ÖDIPUS COMMENTARY“ (1966). Furthermore poems by Müller’s second wife Inge Müller – who committed suicide in 1966 – as well as excerpts from "Jocaste” (1981), a contemporary text by Belgian feminist writer,  Michèle Fabien, and commentaries by the ensemble, are being used.

The Performance

Goal of the Performance trilogy at the BUTCHERY and at the restaurant Adlerhof is a question and reappraisal of the myth of Ödipus from a patriarchy-critical view whereby private family-stories and personal texts of a “Women´s Chorus” are programmatically integrated into the theatrical actions. The Ödipus-“Conflict” – engaged with from a female perspective – is revealed as a male “founding myth” of western civilizations which – as unquestioned tragic matrix – persists like a silent folio of traditional family structures and socio-cultural phenomena to this day. These hierarchies and dependencies entrenching our social structures are up for debate, if we are to find new and necessary forms of human interaction.

Scenario

The performance develops in three acts whereby theatrical forms – tragedy, comedy, ritual and social encounter – are confronted. The „oedipal triangle“ exists til today,  gender-specific experiences reveal the ambivalence of cultural symbols, historical continuities and lines of disjunctions.<o:p></o:p>

Act 1 - Text Machine

The audeince gathers at the box-office at the restaurant  Adlerhof and mingles with old-timers of the district. A modern „Teiresia“_figure is seated at a lonesome corner table, continuously reciting Müller’s „ÖDIPUSKOMMENTAR“ into a microphone (performance loop). Ödipus’ speech to his people is projected onto a local TV-set from the BUTCHERY .

Act 2 – Incongruence/Transition from drama to life

Men and women in the audience are separated into two groups (free choice by way of costuming). The men are led into the BUTCHERY by a “messenger” where the tragedy between Ödipus and Jocaste takes place around a large butcher’s-table – a frontal presentation of playful “theater” around topics of attraction and rejection, fate and resistance. The women follow three chorus-leaders into a back-room of the restaurant where they are served drinks and told the tale of King Ödipus. A choral-musical version of the “Jocaste”-text results in an audience discussion about the question: Who is Jocaste? Susanne Schuster, a matriarchal researcher, speaks about the “transition between patriarchy and matriarchy” and hidden signs of pre-antiquity whose traces are still visible today in art-historical pictures. The relationship between “text” and “texture” (textiles) is explored in acts of “spinning” or “weaving” as female domains and experienced through the handing over of texts (commentaries) and woolen threats form one to the other in a playful-theatrical act of communication.

Scenes of the „Ödipus“-tragedy from the BUTCHERY are transported by video into the back-room; the constitute moments of disturbance and also signal simultaneities.

Act 3 – Ambivalence & Restructuring  

The women follow the „red threat“ of the chorus-leaders to the BUTCHERY where they enter the space, transforming and newly inhabiting it. A singer sings a corny love-song (text by Inge Müller) while the chorus and the women of the audience recite the “Jocaste”-text and entangle the men with threats of wool, thus creating a net through space. The matriarchal researcher sits down at a spinning wheel and prophesizes the reversal of existing gender-relations. The women carry in food and drinks and invite everyone to a potlach.

The BUTCHERY – a new local learning- and action-space

The new activist art space was opened in the fall of 2004 by a new team of interdisciplinary artists.  The exposed storefront from the 19th century with large windows onto the street servies as base-station for new theater workds in the haert of the city. Our search is directed towards the active cooperation with the district and its inhabitants, with neighbors, activists of new social movements and local intercultural organizations. Aim of the development of new socio-theatrical formats is – aside of the emancipation of artists – the active participation of the audiences. The BUTCHERY shall become a community meeting place – like in the good old days of next-door grocery-shops – a living space with „Windows on the world“.

ÖDIPUS_stories Special Events

„Where do we find the unmarked traces of old guilt?"
- Heiner Müller, ÖDIPUS TYRANN, 1966/67

Wednesday, Marchl 29th, 8 pm
Videoscreening: H. Müller & A. Kluge in Discussion I („10vor11“, dctp, 1994-96), followed by questions&answers.

Monday, April 3rd, 7:30 pm
"Die abgeschaffte Mutter"
Hilde Schmölzer (author) is reading from her new Book (Promedia 2006), followed by discussion.

Tuesday, April 4th, 8pm
WomenPowerPolitics – Panel Discussion with female politicians - Madeleine Reiser (Berzirksvorsteher Stellv., 7. Bezirk/Green Party), Melina Klaus (Bundesprecherin KPÖ) and others.
Moderated by Maxie Klein (A, Theater Scholar)

Wednesday, April 5th, 8 pm
Videoscreening: Heiner Müller & Alexander Kluge in Discussion II („10vor11“, dctp, 1994-96). Moderated by Eva Brenner, (Artistic Director/BUTCHERY)
& Wener Rotter (Austrian National Library)

 

Friday, April 7th, 9:30 pm
following thte eprformance of "ÖDIPUS_stories"
Talkshow with Univ. Prof. Dr. Hilder Haider-Pregler & Susanne Schuster (Researcher of matriachy)
Moderated by Eva Brenner (Artistic Director/BUTCHERY)

At all Special Events: Pay as you wish * Free drinks