2023-05-07 08:50:41
Alexandra Koch’s “or the quietest day” was awarded the Peter Turrini dramatist scholarship of the state of Lower Austria, which is awarded every two years at the 2022 play festival. On Saturday evening, the quite interesting work was premiered in the theater workshop of the Landestheater NÖ in St. Pölten. A troubled evening. Everyone tried so hard.
Alexandra Koch addresses the fate of women who are no longer very young or older, who apparently kidnapped a group of children for reasons that are not entirely clear. Questioned by a harsh civil servant (Doris Hingsamer), they come out fragmentarily with their truths and lifeworlds. It doesn’t make a play, especially since the individual characters are faintly drawn and often speak in a choir (a 30-strong choir was originally intended in the text of the play). Even in St. Pölten, that’s slowly coming across the day before yesterday.
The fact that two of the play’s five female roles are cast by men also seems like a stale concession to a fashion wave that has ebbed away. Unless one now also differentiates between women and women or between mothers and mothers. In any case, there is no apparent gain in knowledge. And of course, that there is also a film camera being used (yawn).
That’s a pity, because the topic would have far more exciting potential than a few directorial clichés and mandatory gender exercises. Making characters out of the figures, letting them interact and possibly giving the process a psychological basis, i.e. making theater with a concrete social and socio-critical background, would probably be in the spirit of the scholarship namesake, but otherwise it probably springs from overly reactionary expectations. By the way: The non-transparent submission conditions for the scholarship should also be clarified – the competition is not publicly advertised.
(SERVICE – St. Pölten, Landestheater NÖ, theater workshop: Alexandra Koch “or the quietest day”, director: Sebastian Schimböck, with Tobias Artner, Caroline Baas, Katharina Rose, Doris Hindinger, Sven Kaschte. Performances until June 10th, tickets and Information: Tel. 02742/90 80 80 600, www.landestheater.net )
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