by John von Düffel
The triumphant premiere was yesterday; everyone embraced each other in emotion. But the very next morning, paralyzing trouble looms once more, with final letters and impossible demands piling up on the director's anxious desk: the publisher is demanding the meticulous restoration of the text's accuracy.
A crisis meeting of the management ensues, and instead of swift solutions, rambling, philosophical elephants lumber through the room before a cutthroat power struggle erupts with the already groaning company and the rebellious ensemble representative.
This one-act play, orchestrated in a boulevard-style manner, gleefully navigates the escalating culture war zones: the art of the dirty deal is the only one that survives, and in a volatile role-playing game, those who seem to have been shortchanged suddenly find themselves in the upper hand.
John von Düffel worked for many years as a dramaturge and knows the bureaucratic saga firsthand. In addition to his successful work as an author of novels such as The Angry and the Guilty and as a script adaptor for the theatre, he heads the Scenic Writing course at the UdK and has recently become the artistic director of the ETA Hoffmann Theatre in Bamberg.
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With Meike Droste / Florian Steffen / Frank Wiegard. Directed by Georg Scharegg. Set design by Silke Bauer. Costume design by Andreina Vieira Santos.
Georg Scharegg has worked as an actor, director, and theater producer in Berlin since 1993. After several long-term engagements and leading an independent ensemble, he founded Theaterdiscounter in Berlin in 2003 as a text-experimental stage. His most recent directing credits at TD Berlin include Floor-to-Ceiling Windows, Hamlet or (with Adrienn Bazsó), and the pilot episodes #1 and #2, a scenic synthesis of television and theater storytelling.
Silke Bauer studied at the Berlin University of the Arts with Hartmut Meyer. She has worked at, among others, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, HAU, DT, the Hamburg State Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Theater Chur, Theater an der Wien, the Festival d’Avignon, and frequently at TD Berlin. She has a long-standing collaboration with the internationally active opera director Stefan Herheim.
Georg Scharegg has worked as an actor, director, and theater producer in Berlin since 1993. After several long-term engagements and leading an independent ensemble, he founded Theaterdiscounter in Berlin in 2003 as a text-experimental stage. His most recent directing credits at TD Berlin include Floor-to-Ceiling Windows, Hamlet or (with Adrienn Bazsó), and the pilot episodes #1 and #2, a scenic synthesis of television and theater storytelling.
Silke Bauer studied at the Berlin University of the Arts with Hartmut Meyer. She has worked at, among others, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, HAU, DT, the Hamburg State Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Theater Chur, Theater an der Wien, the Festival d’Avignon, and frequently at TD Berlin. She has a long-standing collaboration with the internationally active opera director Stefan Herheim.