ALLTAGSGESCHICHTEN

For more than 20 years, Elizabeth T. Spira has been portraying the Austrian mentality in her documentary series „Alltagsgeschichten“. Her work has won numerous awards, including the „Austrian State Prize for Cultural Journalism“, the „Johann Nestroy Ring“ and the „Television Prize of Austrian Adult Education“.

Its protagonists are the so-called ordinary people, whose stories are told and whose dreams are brought to light.

But it is also about the „Austrian soul“ – the psychological, social and historically grown state of mind of the Austrians. Here tragedy and comedy sit side by side, and often they are one and the same. Through subjective opinions, personal memories and stories, the social phenomenon that is Austria takes shape.
Manoeuvring between possibilities, wringing charm out of any situation, the tricky coincidences that make history or are taken for it, a pedantically meticulous precision in trivial matters and a nonchalant generosity when it comes to important ones, but above all the inability to decide when it really matters – this is how the Austrian character describes itself.
Or, to continue the thought a little more positively:
Austria lives where ideals are most likely to be realised, where no programme postulates them: that human fun stands high above deadly seriousness, that negation can be just as creative as construction, that dreams can overcome reality, that victory can be defeat and defeat victory, that play can change the world.
The three subjects that move Austrians more than anything else are:
The most varied degrees of inebriation, the diverse forms of mental dementia and the many aspects of female obnoxiousness! (or as Johann Nepomuk Nestroy put it: „Women have it good: they don't smoke, they don't drink, and they're women themselves!“)
To be able to follow all this as a non-Austrian, the rule is: „Reduce the main thing to a reasonable measure of side issues, savour the charm of the side issues, mindful of all futility, aware of all failure, and seek and find the strength to overcome things in wit.“
In short: being Austrian means: „Escape from reality! (Hans Weigel)

AUSTRIA ERIT IN ORBE ULTIMA
„Austria will be the highest on earth. (or should that be: the last?!)“

Susi Weber

PRESS

TIROLER TAGESZEITUNG (30 May 2007)

IN THE MIDST OF AUSTRIAN LIFE

The lonely, the seekers of meaning and the fallen on the stage of the Lendbräukeller in Schwaz.

They dread humanity, they love the little birds and they have blunt words to say about the Jews. …….. Director Susi WEBER has once again shown her superb touch for fine dramaturgical detail, for the quiet, the coarse and the comic. In Fritz BACHMANN's versatile set and Silvia FRITZ's pointedly exaggerated costumes ….. Susanne SCHARTNER, Markus PLATTNER and Daniel LENZ sing and act their way with visible enthusiasm through fears and dreams, bringing sad and funny stories to life. The audience gets dumplings, close contact with the actors and a thoroughly successful evening

BRENNPUNKT (1 June 2007)

CHEERFUL EVERYDAY STORIES

Premiere at the Lendbräukeller with standing ovations

…… in the sold-out theatre, under the direction of Susi WEBER, Susanne SCHARTNER, Daniel LENZ and Markus PLATTNER were on top form, telling of little birds, unpopular German holidaymakers, men desperately looking for women and other poor souls.
And the stars were not only the actors but also a prop: Fritz BACHMANN's dumpling transport machine, which also earned spontaneous applause from the audience. …..