KRETAKÖR THEATRE/ÁRPÁD SCHILLING

This play by the genial German author (who died young in the first half of the XIXth century) with its fresh, free, playful tone common in the literature of the Romantic-Biedermeir age has been regularly performed on the world’s stages from its premiere through modern times. The play deals with the basic problems of individual and social existence in a fairytale-like, seemingly facile form: who are we, why and how should we live, whether we have to give up our freedom to become integrated into society, do we have to give up love for family life, and independent thought to become useful members of society?

This piece takes place in the realm between reality and dream, our true self and the roles we play in the world, fate and free will. It is performed by Krétakör in a minimal playing space, a Persian carpet of 3 x 4mts, in intimate and sometimes grotesque proximity to the audience, which is seated around three sides of the carpet.

“This country is like a Persian carpet” - Leonce says; in this way the Persian carpet laid on the ground defines the playing area.... The association of ideas work well: for Büchner also, the empty space can be interpreted metaphorically as the emptiness of the world and the inner world of the characters, which manifests itself in boredom and doing nothing. From this, it takes only one step to arrive at the current basic idea of Schilling’s theatre, the crisis-drama that perceives the emptying of the world as a shortfall, desperation and conflict. […] Schilling’s achievement is that his actors build from themselves, from their inner contents, he is not a philosophical personality character, but the text-meditation inspired by personality gains philosophical depth.”

Tamás Koltai – ÉS (Life and Literature), April 2002.

 

PRODUCTION  DATES
Cividale, Italy, Mittelfest
22 - 23 July 2002