Premiere of “The Fisherman and His Wife” adapted by Einar Schleef

Opening night: Sat 28 Nov 2015, 8 pm
Further performance: Sun 29 Nov 2015, 8 pm
Youth Theatre

From Goethe Institut:

After last year’s successful cooperation, the Goethe-Institut Hanoi, the Youth Theatre Hanoi and the tjg. theater junge generation from Dresden will present a new, joint theatre project this year. The play will be the popular fairytale “The Fisherman and His Wife” in the act version by Einar Schleef, again under the guidance of German director Dominik Günther. In this theatre production for children, Vietnamese and German culture will meet and interact with the story in a playful and creative way.

The co-production will be put on stage with three different casts: In Vietnam, the performances will be in Vietnamese, but will also incorporate German children and their language via integrated video clips. In Germany, the theatre play will be put on stage in German language, for children over six years. As a special highlight, “The Fisherman and His Wife” will be performed in a German-Vietnamese version in April 2016 in Dresden, with Vietnamese actors and German puppeteers.

“The Fisherman and His Wife” is a popular fairytale in both Vietnam and Germany, dealing with greed and illustrating worldly wisdom. Einar Schleef’s act version of this classical fairytale tells the story of a fisherman who lives in a small cottage, together with his wife Ilsebill. He is quite satisfied with their simple life, but his wife is not. One day, the fisherman catches a flounder, which implores the fisherman to give him his life, for he is really a bewitched prince. When Ilsebill hears of this, she is shocked her husband did not ask the prince for a wish to be granted in return for his life. Contrary to her husband, Ilsebill has an indefinite list of wishes. She pushes her husband to call the flounder again, and behold: The magical fish grants her wish for a real house. But Ilsebill does not settle for a house – a palace she must have, she wants to be Queen, then Empress, ruler of the world! With every wish, the sea gets rougher, and in the end everything is back like it used to be…

Dominik Günther, born 1973 in Bonn, studied Social Sciences and German philology with a focus on Dramatics at the University of Bielefeld. After making first experiences as assistant director at various theatres, he has been working as freelance director since 2005, among others at the Thalia Theater Hamburg, the Deutsches Theater Berlin and the tjg. theater junge generation Dresden. At the Thalia Theater Hamburg, he led several theatre projects with adolescents. Next to that, he also founded the Neandertal Theater Hamburg, he sings and writes for the musical cabaret group Nik Neandertal, and has already received several nominations and awards for his stage productions. In the autumn of 2014, he directed “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” by Bertholt Brecht in Vietnam, on behalf of the Goethe-Institut Vietnam.

Language: Vietnamese

Free tickets available from Monday, 23 November, 9 am at:
– Goethe-Institut Hanoi, 56-58 Nguyen Thai Hoc, Hanoi
– Youth Theatre Hanoi, 11 Ngo Thi Nham, Hanoi

Goethe-Institut Hanoi 56-58 Nguyen Thai Hoc, Ba Dinh, Hanoi Tel.: +84 4 37342251 Fax: +84 4 37342254 [email protected] website