An initiative of the
Theatre Productions
As part of the project “68/89 – Art.Contemporary.History” theatre productions were created in cooperation with the Kampnagel (Hamburg), Archa (Prague), Sophiensaele (Berlin), The Goose on the Line (Brno) and Stancia (Žilina) theatres which following their respective premieres went on the road for guest performances at the other venues.
IT’LL ALL BE DIFFERENT. A UTOPIAN RECOLLECTION
Premiere 30.10.2008, Kampnagel, Hamburg
”It’ll all be different” is a live documentation performed on the stage and the result of months of research and exploration by the director Thorsten Trimpop into biographies which have 1968 as their starting point. The work looks at both sides of the Iron Curtain and blends film, sound material and four different stories, recollections and views into a collage about utopias of freedom, memory and dealing with one’s own history.
Director, text, film and research: Thorsten Trimpop
Stage: Christin Vahl
Dramaturgy: András Siebold
Assistance and dramaturgy: Christa Hohmann
With: Gisela Getty, Jutta Winkelmann, Václav Trojan
A production by the Kampnagel theatre as part of the Zipp project “68/89 – Art.Contemporary.History”.
EXIT 89. HORROR WITH A HUMAN FACE
Premiere 22.10.2008, Archa Theatre, Prague
Described by the author duo of Jaroslav Rudiš and Martin Becker as a ‘a tragic operetta’, ”Exit 89” is set at a petrol station located at kilometre marker 89 along the motorway D1 (Prague-Brno-Vyškov). In 1992 the politician Alexander Dubček was killed in an accident nearby. The six protagonists meet here on the anniversary of the crash. “Exit 89” weaves together six stories taking place between 1968 and 2008. Trucks, a Czech-German love, an accident, a loss of memory, the end of a utopia and the beginning of a new utopia all feature – and all this is played out in front of the monument dedicated to Alexander Dubček.
Book: Martin Becker, Jaroslav Rudiš
Script: Martin Becker, Jiří Havelka, Jaroslav Rudiš
Director: Jiří Havelka
Music: Michal Nejtek
Scene settings: Dáda Němeček
Dramaturgy: Ondřej Hrab
Costumes: Jana Smetanová
With: Ján Sedal, Marie Ludvíková, Jiří Hána, Philipp Schenker, Jakub Žáček, Zuzana Stavná, Petr Reif
A production by the Divadlo Archa (Archa Theatre, Prague) as part of the Zipp project “68/89 – Art.Contemporary.History”.
NICO. SPHINX MADE OF ICE
Premiere 21.11.2008, Sophiensaele, Berlin
”Nico. Sphinx Made of Ice” is based on the music of the singer Nico and the fifty years younger Austrian musician SOAP&SKIN as well as the play of the same name by Werner Fritsch, a concert monologue by Nico in the moment of her dying. More than just a reconstruction of a pop icon, the performance explores the core of Christa Päffgen’s personality, better known as Nico, the legendary singer of Velvet Underground. She swapped her identity many times over, exchanged her German origins for a life in the world of pop, but there too she remained ultimately homeless and uprooted.
Director: Oliver Sturm
Musical director: Gerd Bessler
Stage: Till Exit
Video: Marcel Weber
Dramaturgy: Jan-Philipp Possmann
With: Gerd Bessler, Alexander Christou, Birgit Doll, Harry Hass, Irm Hermann, Annika Hofestädt, Stephen Jaco, Effi Rabsilber, Kenneth Spiteri and Soap&Skin (Anja Plaschg)
A project by Oliver Sturm, a sophiensaele production as part of the Zipp project “68/89 – Art.Contemporary.History”. Supported with funds from the Lord Mayor of Berlin – Senate Department of Cultural Affairs and the German-Czech Future Funds.
CHANCE 1989 or WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
Premiere 16.09.2009, Archa Theatre, Prague
”Window of opportunity” is a term used by NASA to describe the complex constellation of conditions under which it is possible to launch a rocket into space. In common parlance it means a chance that needs to be taken now, because it may first present itself again in some far-off future. Have we taken the chance presented by the window of opportunity that was 1989? – The piece is a kind of documentary theatre that connects drama with expert discussions. A fictive radio show on the station RADIO 89 FM functions as the framework for the evening, where the story of Kurt and Kvĕta, a German-Czechoslovakian married couple, is told.
Stage and direction: Jana Svobodová
Dramaturgy: Ondřej Hrab, Tomáš Vrba
Lighting: Lukáš Brinda, Pavla Beranová
Music and sound design: Jan Středa
Production: Helena Rousová
With: Eva Hromníková, Philipp Schenker
Host of the fictive radio station: Jaroslav Rudiš
A theatre project by the author collective Jana Svobodová, Anna Grusková, Tomáš Vrba and Ondřej Hrab, a Divadlo Archa (Archa Theatre, Prague) production as part of the Zipp project “68/89 Art.Contemporary.History”
THE LAST HISTORICAL ROLE OF THE YOUNG GENERATION
Premiere 22.11.2009, Stanica Theatre, Žilina
What happens when you find out during a party that they’ve beaten up someone and the revolution has begun? Sure, there’s been Perestroika for the last four years, the regimes in Eastern Europe are collapsing one after the other, the first tourists are making off with a part of the Berlin Wall and there’s definitely something in the air in Czechoslovakia. But that’s politics, and life runs through different channels, stories of students who were on the margins of events.
Director: Ján Šimko
Dramaturgy: Fedor Blaščák, Zuzana Ferenczová
Music: Matúš Homola
Stage and custome: Jerguš Opršal
With: Marian Balážik, Ľubomír Bukový, Juraj Igonda
A production by Stanica Žilina-Záriečie (Stanica Theatre in Žilina) as part of the Zipp project “68/89 – Art.Contemporary,History”.
THE GOTT VARIETY SHOW or DO WE LIVE IN GOTTLAND?
Premiere 22.11.2009, Stanica Theatre, Žilina
The production by the Brno company “Goose on the Line” is a grotesque theatrical snapshot devoted to the phenomenon of Karel Gott – an icon of pop culture in the Czech Republic and Germany alike and at the same time a controversial today down to the present day due to his ties to the communist regime.
Director: Jiří Jelínek
Text: Jiří Jelínek, Barbara Vrbová and Pavel Trtílek
Dramaturgy: Barbara Vrbová
Music selection and arrangement: DVA
Costume: Marie Mukařovská and Marcela Ulrichová
Make-up: Sylva Zimula Hanáková
With: Jiří Jelínek and Martina Krátká
A production by Divadlo Husa na provázku (The Goose on the Line Theatre, Brno) as part of the Zipp project “68/89 – Art.Contemporary.History”.
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