Joseph Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola’s
Apocalypse Now, and current events ranging from piracy in Somalia to the war in Afghanistan come together in emerging playwright
Wolfram Lotz’s
The Ridiculous Darkness. Mining the absurdities of our postcolonial world, Lotz sheds light on western society’s inability to comprehend the realities of distant warzones and global trade. The piece, which Lotz wrote as a radio play, premiered at Burgtheater Vienna in 2014 and was invited to the prestigious Theatertreffen Berlin in 2015. In the same year, Lotz received the Nestroy Theatre Prize and
Theater heute magazine voted his play German-Language Play of the Year.
In partnership with the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, a staged reading of
The Ridiculous Darkness, directed by
Paul Lazar, Co-Artistic Director at Big Dance Theater, is presented at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Following the reading the playwright Lotz talks about his work and the German theatre scene.
Wolfram Lotz, born in Hamburg in 1981, studied Literature, Art, and Media in Konstanz and Creative Writing at Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig. He writes theater plays, audio plays, lyric poetry, and prose. He has received numerous awards, including the Kleist-Förderpreis (2011) for his play
Der Große Marsch (
The Big March).
Paul Lazar is a founding member and co-artistic director, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Walker Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop, among others.
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