Theater Performance “The Caucasian Chalk Circle”
17, 18 and 19 Sep 2014, 8 pm
Youth Theatre
From Goethe Institut:
“The Caucasian Chalk Circle” is one of the most famous plays of the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956). The Goethe Institute, in cooperation with the Youth Theatre Hanoi, brings this piece to the stage for the first time in Vietnam in a modern production of German director Dominik Günther – with an interactive stage design and plenty of music.
After four weeks of intensively rehearsing the premiere will take place on September 17th. It’s a special and exciting cooperation for the actors and the whole ensemble of the Youth Theatre as well as for the German director that brings great new insights to everybody.
It is wartime. Enemy soldiers are approaching; the house of the wealthy governor is in a panic as everyone frantically packs their bags for their escape. The governor’s wife presses her little son into the arms of the maid Grusche and flees to safety, taking her money and expensive clothes. Grusche escapes with the little one and raises him, through many perils and dangers, as if he were her own son. Her beloved Simon thinks she was unfaithful and leaves her. The years go by. One day the governor’s wife appears. She wants the child back, since the boy will soon inherit a large amount of money. But for Grusche he has long since become her own child, and she does not want to just give him away. The matter comes before the judge Azdak. How will he decide? And is there hope for the love of Grusche and Simon?
Director Dominik Guenther: “The piece fits into our current time”
Question: How will you make this play from a distant past interesting for today’s Vietnamese public, especially the young audience?
Dominik Guenther: Actually, the piece is not really all that distant. The question how love and humanity relate to each other in difficult times, when everyone thinks of nothing but oneself is always and in every culture relevant. This is why I have made no changes in the language or the setting in the fictitious state of Grusinien. However, I have transported other elements into the present. The costumes, for example, are modern. I have also recast the figure of the narrator: This character is a kind of a director who will lead the happenings with the help of electronic music and different sound effects. The secret behind this character I don’t want to reveal yet.
Read the full interview with Director Dominik Guenther.
For more information on this German-Vietnamese theatre project see www.goethe.de/vietnam and Facebook.
Language: Vietnamese
Free Tickets available from September 10th, 10 am at the following venues:
• Goethe Institute, 56-58 Nguyen Thai Hoc, Hanoi
• Youth Theater Hanoi, 11 Ngo Thi Nham
Youth Theatre 11 Ngo Thi Nham, Hanoi |