"fragil | fragile" is the motto of the upcoming wortwiege theater festival at Kasematten Wiener Neustadt. From February 21 to March 24, the program includes two new productions, two international guest performances with Israeli theater makers as part of the SEA CHANGE Collection, the continuation of the "Reden!" series and the thematically in-depth "Salons".
MEDEA - All present
Dramatic poem by Franz Grillparzer / wortwiege
wortwiege presents Grillparzer's "dramatic poem" about a hopeless love affair from the perspective of Medea, in whose daylit consciousness the traumatic events of guilt, expulsion and fear of loss take on a pictorial form. Grillparzer's razor-sharp analysis of the dream-like yet psycho-logical processing mechanisms of everything that "transcends human strength" is at the heart of the story.
After years of sea voyages, Medea, Jason and their two sons camp outside Corinth. King Creon grants asylum and even offers Jason, the Greek, his daughter's hand in marriage if he is prepared to cast Medea - the dangerous other - aside. Betrayed by the man for whom she has left her homeland, Colchis, and taken the death of her royal family on her conscience, distraught by her complete estrangement from her sons, full of fears for their future, she decides to commit the unthinkable act.
Premiere: February 21, 2024
Further performances. February 24 and 29, March 10, 14, 15, 20 and 24, 2024
Medea © Julia Kampichler
SCHLACHTHOF - We only eat cauliflower
Sławomir Mrożek / wortwiege
Sławomir Mrożek caused a worldwide sensation with his absurd texts about life and work in totalitarian regimes. As an act of solidarity with the suppressed Prague Spring, Mrożek left his country in 1968 and applied for asylum in France. Following the great success of Vaclav Havel's "Audience" at the 2023 festival, wortwiege is continuing its focus on important dissident authors.
The violinist sits alone in his room in his mother's house, who holds him lovingly hostage. He longs for liberation. Music - his art, which is controlled and regulated by his mother's surveillance - is supposed to enable him to escape. Miraculously, he does indeed become a genius and gives concerts on the renowned stage of the philharmonic orchestra. But he soon realizes that even in this environment there is no artistic freedom and resorts to public slaughter. After all, how do you make art in restrictive systems or even in war?
Premiere: February 28, 2024
Further performances. March 3, 7, 9, 13, 17 and 22, 2024
Slaughterhouse © Julia Kampichler
A HANDBOOK FOR THE ISRAELI THEATER DIRECTOR IN EUROPE
Théâtre Majâz, France/Israel
How do you pack war and macchiato, self-absorption and cynical detachment, hope and despair and one or two international conflicts into a compact entertainment format? Udo Shaked and Hannan Ishay tell their fictional story about a very contemporary reality.
Two Israeli directors have the same experience in their international theater work: everywhere they are seen as "the Israeli". Between politics, morality, history and reality - what actually is an Israeli story and could they even represent it, face the many questions? Only if they themselves are prepared to take on this frightening mission: To offer a play about their neurotic, half-mad and increasingly totalitarian, yet beloved homeland. Reality overtakes any crazy fiction when, in the middle of their preparations, war breaks out on October 7 and turns everything they think they know about life in Israel/Palestine upside down.
March 2 and 16, 2024
THE ANTHOLOGY
Acco Theatre Center, Israel
The internationally acclaimed stage play by the Akko Theatre Center: Zelma Greenwald is a survivor of the Holocaust. Two circumstances keep her alive: Her headstrong son and the piano.
The audience is invited to sit down at Zelma's piano, drink a glass of cognac and experience her thoughts as active interlocutors.
March 21 and 23, 2024
A HANDBOOK FOR THE ISRAELI THEATRE DIRECTOR IN EUROPE © Wortwiege 2024
"What can the performing arts show in a present that surpasses the most terrible and bizarre fantasies of great playwrights on the real world stage? Perhaps how fragile every kind of relationship is: between people, let alone between states. How fragile peace is. How quickly a wrong step, a wrong word, a wrong gesture can lead to a fatal explosion when the long-repressed erupts with force. Caution! the characters in our plays might shout, caution - we are fragile! And: art, this second reality, is a valid alternative to war."
Festival director Anna Maria Krassnigg
