Download annex 1 - National Arts Council

ANNEX 1
SAMOVAR – CHECK OUT CHEKOV
SYNOPSIS
Like the samovar - the steaming centre of traditional Russian get-together and hospitality
– that serves the refreshing essence of black tea, this constellation of Anton Chekov's
major plays presents the concentrated extract of his dark human comedies with
invigorating irony.
The setting is unusual: we watch the live-drawing of the main characters who inhabit The
Seagull, Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters. They are pencilled here and
now before our eyes onto the fast-changing pages of a sketch-book, which is observed
by a video camera.
A second camera is moving through the paper mock-up of a room in a bourgeois home,
providing the three-dimensional background for the lively figures that are blending in and
out like in the fading films of memory.
It is a space of the soul unfolding before the cautious eye of the camera; fugitive like the
strokes of the pencil; pale with nostalgia; filled with clear and distant echoes of the
characters’ voices, thoughts and dreams. There is no actual storyline. It is like an
atmospheric Chekovian play. People are waiting, talking drinking tea, philosophizing,
withering away, wasting their lives, falling in love hopelessly, longing for another place,
longing for another life, in vain.
And while these inhabitants of the Chekovian universe meet, yet never meet, emerge
and vanish in this graphic space, oscillating between in- and out-side, a young woman is
reading lines of the original text in the Russian language, the translation of which
appears as faint projection overlapping the images.
The multi-layered web of foreign sounds with their special Slavic charm and fascinatingly
hand-made imagery of characters creates both a touching and estranging quality of
poetic animation. A whiff of caricature mingles with empathy and turns us into gentle
voyeurs of comic tragedies that are our own.
ANNEX 2
SAMOVAR – CHECK OUT CHEKOV
PERFORMERS’ PROFILE
Airan Berg
Airan Berg was born in Tel Aviv and lives in Vienna. He received his BA in Theater Arts
from Brown University in the USA and started his first professional theatre experience in
New York on Broadway as assistant to Harold Prince. From 1986, he worked at the
Salzburg Festival and was directorial assistant and co-director with Claus Peymann and
Peter Zadek at the Burgtheater. He was the house director at the Schiller Theater in
Berlin in 1990. He made study trips to Indonesia where he observed mask dancing and
shadow plays, making further stops in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Together
with Martina Winkel, he founded Theater Ohne Grenzen (Theatre without Boundaries)
and the international puppet theatre festival for adults called “Die Macht des Staunens”.
He was appointed the Artistic Director of the Schauspielhaus Vienna in 2001.
Marcel Keller
Marcel Keller was born in Cologne and lives in Stuttgart, Germany. After he studied at
the Technical College for Arts and Design in Cologne, he worked as a costume and
stage designer at the Staatsoper Hamburg, Wiener Staatsoper, and the Covent Garden
Opera in London. From 1985, he was a freelance designer at the Kammerspiele in
Munich, Schauspiel in Bonn, and Harbourfront Theatre in Toronto. Between 1990 to
1992, he worked for the State-Theatres Berlin and the Schillertheater. He has also held
exhibitions, amongst them, Die UFA - a German Imperium of Pictures at the Deutsches
Historisches Museum in Berlin and the Bundespräsident Theodor Heusss Haus in
Stuttgart.
Anna Sebanz
Anna Sebanz was born in Russia in the Bryansk region and studied at the State
University of Technology Perm in the linguistics and interpretation department. Fluent in
English, German, Polish and Russian, she has worked as a secretary and translator and
the cultural and commercial sectors. Her love for the theatre has brought her from being
a cloakroom attendant, backstage and office helper at the Schauspielhaus in Vienna,
onto the stage in this production of Samovar.
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ANNEX 3
SAMOVAR – CHECK OUT CHEKOV
CREDIT LIST
Live Animation
Live Video
Live Voice
Technician
Marcel Keller
Airan Berg
Anna Sebanz
Armin Steiner
A Schauspielhaus Vienna Production
SCHAUSPIELHAUS VIENNA
Artistic Director
General Manager
Technical Director
Airan Berg
Viktoria Salcher
Michael Zerz
The Schauspielhaus Vienna is supported by Vienna’s Arts Council and the
Cultural Section of the Austrian Federal Chancellery.
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ANNEX 4
SAMOVAR – CHECK OUT CHEKOV
PROFILE OF SCHAUSPIELHAUS VIENNA
The story of the Schauspielhaus begins in 1978, when the Viennese theatre director and
leader of the group Werkstatt, Hans Gratzer, converted an old cinema in the 9th district
into a functional theatre space. It opened on May 4th in the same year with Jean Genet’s
play, The Balcony. Hans Gratzer was both the General and Artistic Director of the
theatre, apart from a short interruption, for 20 years until 2001. From 1987-1990, George
Tabori was the Artistic Director of the theatre and established his concept of theatre as
der Kreis (The Circle). After a public announcement inviting new applicants for the post
of Artistic and General Director to follow Hans Gratzer, Airan Berg and Barrie Kosky
were appointed and became the new co-directors of the Wiener Schauspielhaus.
Since autumn 2001, under the artistic direction of Airan Berg, the Schauspielhaus has
established itself as a risk-taking, modern, and independent theatre. The variety of the
programmes, the growing interest in their works, and growing audience numbers have
shown that the establishment of an international, contemporary, critical and
unconventional theatre house in Vienna, has been successful.
It is of great importance that the theatre leaves its customary European-biased viewpoint
and opens itself up to the variety of interpretations and influences from the many other
cultures around the world. This encourages different perspectives and fruitful dialogues
from the multitude of international artistic voices and creates an open- forum based on
equality as the cornerstone of contemporary society. There should be an investigation of
the intricate intercultural theatre language of both body and identity, in order to develop a
vocabulary of understanding and expression, which no longer concentrates solely on
language and the necessity of translation in order to be understood.
The Schauspielhaus confronts the Viennese audience with a multi-dimensional theatrical
vision and invites them to a continuous dialogue and to take a critical stand. A true
discourse in the literal sense of the word inviting its audience to enter a different world.
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