Frascati 1, 20.00 uur
€ 14 en in combi met Fras 2: 21 euro / 10,50
tags: performance
Utopia/Dystopia
In October, Frascati will be unveiling a new presentation in the Nes and in Frascati WG. Utopia/Dystopia is a programme made up of Dutch and international productions in which theatre-makers explicitly relate to our times. In which they speak out in an attempt to create order in a world from which the big ideologies have disappeared. Documentary theatre in which the personal and the political meet.
We will be showing Void Story by Tim Etchells/Forced Entertainment; 1: SONGS by Nicole Beutler; Theater with dirty feet by Rabih Mroué; Venlo by the Wunderbaum collective and 2012, a text by Marjolijn van Heemstra, directed by Julie Van den Berghe (Frascati Productions).
Utopia/Dystopia presents a series of productions that sketch an apocalyptic world view. Whether this focuses on the fall of the Berlin Wall, the political situation in Beirut or the rise of a 'liveability crisis' in the Dutch town of Venlo; the productions that make up Utopia/Dystopia are all in search of ways to relate to (lack of) ideology. They tell highly personal stories, full of the morbid hope, destructive tendencies and will to survive thrown up the dislocated state of our modern society. Five productions that all harbour a certain violence, but in which humour often brings relief. Utopia/Dystopia is a theatrical laboratory, in which hope and abhorrence take the spotlight in turns. And sometimes utopia and dystopia are very close together.
The performances in Frascati 1 and Frascati 2 can be seen from Thur 29 through Sat 31 Oct, in combination for a special total price of € 21.
Frascati International
Void Story follows a beleaguered pair of protagonists on a rollercoaster ride through the decimated remains of contemporary culture. Navigating one terrible cityscape after another, mugged, shot at and bitten by insects, pursued through subterranean tunnel systems, stowed away in refrigerated transport, shacked up in haunted hotels and lost in wildernesses, backstreets and bewildering funfairs, they travel to the centre of a night so intense that there are no stars to be seen.
Forced Entertainment perform the bleak and comical contemporary fable of Void Story as if it were a radio play, sitting at tables, turning the pages of the script, ‘doing’ the requisite voices and adding in sound effects for gunshots, rain and bad phone-lines. Simultaneously the otherwise empty stage is dominated by a series of projected images, a storyboard for an impossible movie-version of Tim Etchells’ uniquely unsettling text. Somewhere between the live dialogue, the recorded sound effects and the collaged images attempting to visualise the narrative, is where Void Story actually takes place.
2009 marks Forced Entertainment’s 25th anniversary. Since forming the company on graduation from Exeter University in 1984, the six core members of the group have sustained a unique artistic partnership for quarter of a century, confirming time and again their position as trailblazers in contemporary theatre. The company’s substantial canon of work reflects an interest in the mechanics of performance, the role of the audience and the machinations of contemporary urban life. The work – framed and focused by Artistic Director Tim Etchells - is distinctive and provocative, delighting in disrupting the conventions of theatre and the expectations of audiences. Forced Entertainment’s trademark collaborative process – devising work as a group through improvisation, experimentation and debate – has made them pioneers of British avant-garde
Press quotes
“Confounding conventions and exploding audience expectations.” The Times
“One of Britain’s greatest theatre companies.” The Guardian
“Theatre turned inside out.” Sunday Times
Void Story is a lushly macabre piece that makes a farce of storytelling. ****
WHAT’S ON STAGE.COM April 2009
The post-apocalyptic atmosphere of all-round hopelessness is filled with the dark,
perceptive comedy of Tim Etchells’ script. Etchells is a master of the absurd. ****
OMHMUSIC.COM April 2009
- Tickets
- Credits
- Randprogramma
- Media
- Pers