Music Theatre
WOYZECK

Thalia Theater at Sydney Festival 2016

Thu, 07.01.2016 -
Tue, 12.01.2016
Carriageworks

Exclusive performances of the piece adapted by Robert Wilson, Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan

Leading German theatre company Thalia Theater Hamburg make their long awaited Australian debut performance with the stage adaptation of Georg Büchner’s eponymous play, Woyzeck. Acclaimed theatre director Robert Wilson, American musicians Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan have reinvented the raw and unforgiving Woyzeck as a 21st century musical. Something between a fever dream and social drama, Woyzeck is a lurid performance dealing with madness, obsession and murder.

Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck was left as a fragment after the author passed away in 1837. Robert Wilson, Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan created a musical re-working which was also released as the album, Blood Money. Under the direction of Jette Steckel, the actors are in constant combat with an oversized grid of steel and rope that is stretched across the stage.

Tom Waits writes: “Woyzeck deals with madness and obsession, with children and murder – all things that move us. The piece is wild and lurid and exciting and it inspires your imagination. It makes you fear for the characters and reflect on your own life. I don’t think you can really demand more than that from a play.”

Robert Wilson worked with Tom Waits in 1990 to create the first so-called art musical produced for Thalia Theater Hamburg, The Black Rider. Following the production’s enormous success, Thalia Theater commissioned another work by Waits and Wilson which resulted in Alice.

Jette Steckel creates two worlds in her Woyzeck: one of the poor German underclass speaking gutsy pre-Brechtian German; another of introspection through Waits’ English songs.

Thalia Theater Hamburg is one of Germany's most successful theatres with their repertoire performed at renowned international arts festivals and theatres around the world, including appearances in New York, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, Seoul, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Shanghai and Bogota.

Songs and lyrics: Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan
Text adaptation: Ann-Christin Rommen, Wolfgang Wiens
Director: Jette Steckel
Stage Design: Florian Lösche
Costume Design: Pauline Hüners
Musical Director: Gerd Bessler, Laurenz Wannenmacher
Dramaturgy: Susanne Meister
Musicians: Gabriel Coburger, Johannes Huth, Uwe Granitza, Stephan Krause, Edouard Tachalow, Laurenz Wannenmacher
Actors: Bernd Grawert, Julian Greis, Franziska Hartmann, Philipp Hochmair, Felix Knopp, Tilo Werner, Jörg Pohl, Gabriela Maria Schmeide 

Duration: 110 minutes