05/16/2021, 18.00 – 05/19/2021, 18.00 
Streaming

ARCTIQUE

(Brussels)
by Anne-Cécile Vandalem / Das Fräulein (Kompanie)
Conception, Writing and Direction: Anne-Cécile Vandalem

 

Guest performance during FIND 2019

The year is 2025, the future has begun – and it’s quite a dark future. Europe is shattered by wars, resources are growing scarce and the climate is getting hotter and hotter. Greenland has broken free from Denmark and, thanks to global warming, has become a new El Dorado. The melting icecaps at the North Pole have uncovered vast deposits of Uranium, rare minerals, gas, and oil which have awakened the interests of international consortia, claims of ownership from and rivalries between several countries and the greed of anonymous large-scale investors. The »Arctic Serenity« sets sail from Copenhagen: a former cruise ship which suffered a terrible collision on her maiden voyage ten years ago in which environmental activist Mariane Thuring, who was on board as a singer in the ship’s band, died. The ship is now supposed to be towed to Nuuk in Greenland where she is to be converted into a luxury hotel. She contains six stowaways who have each been lured there by an anonymous letter. They all want to flee Europe to the north; and they are all, in very different ways, embroiled in Greenland’s independence from Denmark which ultimately involved selling off national resources, creating poverty and a new dependence for the island, and which was supposed to be celebrated on the maiden voyage of the »Arctic Serenity« before the catastrophe took place. As the boat arrives on the high seas, the tugboat suddenly and entirely unexpectedly cuts the »Arctic Serenity« loose and she is left drifting aimlessly with her stowaways in international waters. Accompanied by the ghostly sounds of the ship’s band, sudden twists, unexpected revelations, mutual accusations, machinations and arbitrarily shifting alliances amongst the passengers inexorably push the plot towards disaster in the Arctic Ocean.

Anne-Cécile Vandalem (*1979, Liège) studied acting at the Conservatoire de Liège. Since 2008 she has been producing her plays together with her company »Das Fräulein«. Her previous work »Tristesses« was presented at FIND 2017. In »ARCTIQUE« she once more combines theatre with live music and video and, employing a biting humour, mixes elements of crime drama, grotesque dystopia, political thriller and absurd comedy to tell of a dark future.

Conception, Writing and Direction: Anne-Cécile Vandalem
Set Design: Ruimtevaarders
Dramaturgy: Nils Haarmann, Sarah Seignobosc
Original Music and Sound Design: Pierre Kissling
Sound Design: Antoine Bourgain
Lighting Design: Enrico Bagnoli
Video Design, Director of Photography, Operator: Federico D’Ambrosio
Edition: Yannick Leroy
Camera Operator: Léonor Malamatenios
Costume Design: Laurence Hermant
Make-up and Special Effects: Sophie Carlier
Props: Fabienne Müller

With: Frédéric Dailly, Guy Dermul, Eric Drabs, Véronique Dumont, Philippe Grand’Henry, Epona Guillaume, Zoé Kovacs, Gianni Manente, Jean-Benoit Ugeux, Mélanie Zucconi

>>> Essay about the production in Pearson's Preview: Looking at a Star, Awry. Vandalem’s »ARCTIQUE« at FIND 2019

Trailer

You can activate German or English subtitles by selecting the corresponding symbol in the control bar at the bottom right.

Duration: ca. 120 minutes

Production: Das Fräulein (Kompanie), Studio Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles
Co-production: Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Théâtre de Namur, Théâtre de Liège, MARS/Mons Arts de la scène, Volcan-Scène nationale du Havre, L’Odéon – Théâtre de l’Europe, Les Théâtres de la Ville du Luxembourg, Comédie de Reims – Festival Reims Scènes d’Europe, Comédie de Caen – Festival les Boréales, Espace Jean Legendre, Scène nationale de l’Oise en préfiguration – Compiègne, Les Célestins – Lyon, La Coop asbl & Shelter Prod

Production / 3sat-recording
The 10 Selected Productions

Automatenbüfett

by Anna Gmeyner

Burgtheater (Vienna)

Premiere 30 October 2020

Barbara Frey and the Vienna Burgtheater’s acting company have created a wonderfully tragicomic evening of theatre that puts the rarely performed author Anna Gmeyner back in the spotlight.

 

The provincialist Adam saves the beautiful stranger Eva from suicide by drowning and takes her along to the “Automatenbüfett”, the restaurant owned by his feisty wife. Eva’s arrival is an attraction to this largely male community and the shrewd Adam knows how to use it to further his plans. Anna Gmeyner’s characters are struggling desperately for civility but cannot help gradually revealing their own depravity. Martin Zehetgruber has designed the eponymous automat, which provides a looming backdrop to sometimes cringeworthily funny and sometimes heartrendingly sad encounters between the outstanding cast. Once again, director Barbara Frey has proved her talent for precise yet casual suspense – and an intelligent, contemporary look at gender-dependencies.

Theatertreffen-juror Petra Paterno about the production
“Automatenbüfett” is a rediscovery. Author Anna Gmeyner, born in Vienna in 1902, was a literary outsider throughout her life. “Automatenbüfett” would have been more than adequate to establish Gmeyner as a dramatist as early as the 1930s, but since she was a left-wing Jewish playwright, her writing was banned in Nazi-Germany. Gmeyner managed to escape to exile in Britain and never returned to Austria.

The final opera in Donizetti’s “Tudor trilogy” focuses on the older Queen Elizabeth I, who is forced to sign the death warrant of the nobleman she loves. Sir David McVicar, who directed the Met premieres of Anna Bolena and Maria Stuarda, returns to stage the final installment in the series. Acclaimed bel canto soprano Sondra Radvanovsky will sing Elizabeth I in Roberto Devereux as well as the title roles in Anna Bolena and Maria Stuarda over the course of the season, a famous feat performed by Beverly Sills at New York City Opera in the 1970s and not repeated in New York since. Roberto Devereux also stars Matthew Polenzani as the title character; Elīna Garanča as Sara, the Duchess of Nottingham and the queen’s secret rival; and Mariusz Kwiecien as the Duke of Nottingham. Maurizio Benini conducts the first-ever Met performances of this work.