DIE WUT DER SANFTMÜTIGEN

"I dreamt that I was sitting on a white rock by the sea. Then a seagull came along, suddenly able to speak, and invited me to sit on its back and fly away with it."

Anger arises when needs and desires are suppressed. Life is a constant struggle with power relations. The subtle and disguised forms in which power is exercised are hard to see through. There is a constant battle. It is fought in the most varied ways: by fleeing or attacking, by asserting oneself and putting others down, with cunning and guile, sometimes openly, sometimes covertly. If people fail to turn their anger into courage – that is, to meet life with curiosity, tolerance and openness, no longer wanting to "have" anything – they stumble into depression, resignation and helplessness. Only when life "forces" them to look their fears in the eye, to admit and accept them, is there a chance of finding the white rock and, on the back of a seagull, finding the true land of gentleness.

This play is a scathing and at the same time darkly comic satire about the prison we have built for ourselves and the insatiable desire to break out of it.

Since 2002 the TIROLER DRAMATIKERFESTIVAL, directed by Klaus ROHRMOSER, has shown plays every two years by Tyrolean authors or by guest authors addressing a Tyrolean theme. Over these years more than 40 different playwrights have been able to present their works to audiences in full productions. Each production has an average of 5 performances, and the festival as a whole attracts around 3,000 visitors each time. The festival shows its own productions and co-productions with various Tyrolean theatres and increasingly seeks out unconventional venues intended to underline its festival character beyond everyday theatre life.

PRESS
TIROLER TAGESZEITUNG (9 May 2014)

AND IT GETS COLD AND COLDER

Happiness is a little bird, as the saying goes. For Christine, happiness is a seagull sitting on a white rock, listening to the roar of the sea. Christine hears a roaring too, sometimes even a whistling – her ears hurt like hell, and not even the onion poultice prescribed by the neighbour helps. For days she and her husband Emil have been waiting for new windows; the old ones were supposedly bad – but still better than none at all. The front door is gone too; a soundproofed one is on its way, but until it arrives, the once cosy home is as draughty as a birdcage. Yet instead of lighting a fire under the workmen, Christine and Emil resign themselves to their fate – and wrap themselves in the Persian rug in search of warmth.

So much for the bizarre framework of Mirjam Zadra's satire "Die Wut der Sanftmütigen", which can be seen at the Tiroler Dramatikerfestival – and which plays with the possibilities of the absurd. The protagonists let others decide for them without a fight; the flat increasingly becomes a battlefield, which suits the state of the couple's botched marriage. Instead of rebelling, Christine and Emil leave their home to a horde of ants and move onto a park bench, later into a prison cell and finally into a madhouse gleaming all in white. Of the seagull, however, there is no trace. Has happiness got a screw loose?

Under Judith Keller's gripping direction, Zadra's powerful text is brought compellingly to life: Elke Hartmann and Klaus Beyer move and bewilder as the Gabriel couple, who answer an "I love you" with "I know" and whose lives – like the windows of their flat – fall out of their frames.Alexander M. Virgolini, Susanne Schartner and Heinz Fitz are convincing in supporting roles.The soundtrack, shaped by Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin and Abbey Lincoln, is one you'd happily take home with you. And listen to with the windows open. (fach)