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The man of Shadows

Shadows-Web PicEarliest memory … earliest memory … let’s see … Fear … naturally.

The Man of Shadows is a darkly humorous play that tells the story of Val Arkam jr, a faded Hollywood horror star, and his encounter with young Laura Starling, a talented journalist and daughter of the film critic that originally named him “The Man of Shadows”. It was the name that launched a dramatic career as dark, gothic and outright frightening off-screen as on. – In a last bid for fame and validation Arkam conjures a lost world of old Hollywood horror, and Laura finally confronts “the old darkness” she lost her farther to long ago. And in the end, of course, a terrible secret is revealed that will change Laura’s life forever…

“Where be Death this midsummer’s day?
Why he sits in the house where the shadow men play.”

Anon – Sonnets for the Cradle (London, c.1765)

For centuries the Shadow Men and their travelling theatre have been feared as much as they have been welcomed. It was believed that Death himself was their patron, so enchanted was he with their playing. Yet those brave few who found the courage to attend the most bloodcurdling tales of terror ever performed were said to live long and charmed lives thereafter.

Darren Robert Smith
Born in England, Smith has been on stage since age five. He was trained at the Drama Centre London, where he was sponsored by Sir Anthony Hopkins, and has appeared on stages all over Europe.

Guenther Primig
born in Austria, Primig immigrated to California, and, from there, to Berlin. Writes film scripts, short stories and plays. His most recent work appeared in the Shirley Jackson Award nominated anthology Shades Of Darkness.

The Theatre Of Shadows
founded in 2010, is dedicated to producing original plays of the macabre and new stagings of classic tales of horror.What better way to celebrate the haunted season of Halloween than with this new production of their successful “The Man Of Shadows,” newly expanded and presented in preparation for its 2012 London premiere.

 

Terminal Connections – The Airport Plays

presented by PLAY2C (Berlin)

AirportPlays3_webLives in transition in the contained and suspended world of an airport setting

More than a dozen characters are weaving their way into each other over the course of a series of meaningful departures, layovers or arrivals. In these slices of destiny we travel from suspicion to attraction, fear to trust, alienation to connection and stress to love.

The One Act Plays:

Where I Come From by Daniel Reitz : En route young Shay finds herself confronted with the hard facts of her destination by the radical demonstration of a fellow traveller. Image

Storks by Catherine Filloux : An unnerved grandmother finds an unexpected communion with her estranged granddaughter in the course of a layover.

Haere Mai Ki Aotearoa by Julie McKee : Expat New Yorker Fiona returns to her native New Zealand and rather faces the audience than her family waiting outside the gate.

Terminal Connection by Ari Roth (Directed by Peter Romero) : Two arrivals strive to continue an intimate inflight moment at the terminal where they part after finding new direction in a bittersweet meeting.

The Airport Play by Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros : a distressed woman finds enlightenment in the form of a mercilessly nosy stranger who helps to mend two broken hearts, his and hers.

The Flight of the Last Calhoon by Quincy Long : Gosts of the past are challenged and transformed by a desperate passenger with the help of two very curious security personnel.

The chorus figure of a grounded Air Captain joins all six plays.

The Gift of the Magi / Immigrant Xmas

Berlin International Opera

GiftOfTheMagi2German premiere of David Conte´s chamber opera The Gift of the Magi“

La Bohème in New York 1910 and Berlin 2010 – two metropolitan cities in different eras, both the focus of immigration of young people, who left their home to find a better life.

It´s Christmas time, the season of family, joy and giving. But how do you feel when your family is far away? And money is so tight you cannot even buy a gift for your loved one?

The touching story of celebrated American writer O. Henry about Della and Jim, two young and penniless lovers in New York, was turned into a chamber opera by San Francisco-based composer David Conte.

Berlin International Opera stages the German premiere of this new romantic opera and links it with the sometimes bleak reality of the lives of foreign artists in Berlin, who came to this city, attracted by its wide range of possibilities.

With humour, sensitivity and freshness, the production investigates the co-relation between fantasy and reality, life on and off stage in a foreign place. Sung and performed by singers of different ethnic and national backgrounds – and documentated on film at authentic locations in Berlin.

giftofthe magi“Berlin in winter is a harsh place to be. Being far from home and family in the season of giving and sharing, can make you even more aware of how alone you are.” (Lauren Lee American soprano)

Della and Jim made an oath not to give each other anything for Christmas this year. Yet both have very different plans….

“I have related to you the chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. They are the magi.” (O. Henry: The Gift of the Magi)

supported by the Berlin Senate Intercultural Affairs Department

DEEP WIVES, SHALLOW ANIMALS

by Howard Barker

deepWives_website“By dignity I mean the prospect of a terrible indecency” Howard Barker

On House arrest in her own home, once magnificent but now ravaged by a mysterious change whose the destructive impact continues to be felt, the Countess Strassa is now subject to the authority of those who, until recently, were her servants. We will never know the exact nature of the event which has produced such a change; at best can we measure the effects. The question posed by the new situation is not about the reversal of power relations – it‟s already done – but of exceeding them, that is to say the appropriation of the other, body of the other, that Howard Barker defines in bluntly erotic terms: what is required of Strassa is that she consents to be owned by the husband of her former maid. Abject perspective in the physical absence of the husband that makes the two women create a strange relationship of antipathy, rivalry, but also unexpected complicity, and gives rise to a tense dialogue, powerful, sharp as a razor, which opened excavation at the heart of the human and uncovers what makes it beat: desire, frustration, thirst for dignity.

“I’ve always been attracted by the plays of Howard Barker. His more abstract world, more dreamlike than his English contemporaries, fascinates me. His baroque side also, that exceeds the narrow confines of our time. Natasha’s proposal was an opportunity to move to act: to finally stage a piece of him with a couple of excellent actresses. And the choice has logically focused on “deep spouses, shallow animals” For it concerns two women here. In a climate of an upheaval. A Coup. Two women in a time when power relations are reversed. Where the one which reigned will eat dust. And the one that was invisible will be able to shine in the light. Where the one who had everything, now doesn‟t have anything and the one who had nothing, now possesses all thing. Two women in a permanent relationship of domination and submission which reminds of “The Maids” by Jean Genet. But if the Barker play is inspired by it, that is just to better project it in the heart of the preoccupations of our time, playing continuously on the fear of a world that is on the road to ruin and on the need for real and concrete links (even violent) in a more and more virtual world: as in a video game where one chooses his clothes, the color of his hair, his car, his house…Here it‟s about choosing the manner in which one of the two women will be raped. Under the pretext of power inversion (the mistress becomes the slave of her servant) the two women are playing themselves a dangerous game that keeps their senses awake even if a priori, all is dead around them. Apart from this mechanical dog, ersatz of Japanese robots that is constantly coming to collect its share of the spoils: a piece of the dress of the mistress being more and more laid bare. Because what remains of power without the attributes of power? And even further in this game of reversed mirror: what remains of desire without the attributes of power? In this dance where you never really know who leads the game, it is an entire pursuit of desire which is unfolding before our eyes, combining abandonment and revolt of bodies subject to the tyranny of the learned thought.”    Patrick Verschueren

Short Shrifts

12 short plays by Peter Oswald

 

ShortShriftsPeter Oswald´s short plays represent a re-discovery of the complexity of the human spirit in all its manifestations of comedy, tragedy, farce, surrealism, the grotesque and the very real.

Attention Seekers (UK) invite audiences on a spell-binding journey into ‘marriage’ and the ancient relationship between the masculine and the feminine.

The Event

by John Clancy

EVENT_Calvitto-lg0014(Lights up on a man.)
A man stands in a pool of light in front of a room of suddenly silent strangers.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
(Pause.)
They watch him, waiting to hear what he will say next.
Seriously. Stop me.

The highlight of The Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2009 and the Adelaide Festival 2010: Adelaide Fringe Award Best Performer 2010 for David Calvitto (also Edinburgh Fringe Festival Stage Best Actor 2002 for Horse Country and Audience Favorite Award for 12 Angry Men at the 2003 Edinburgh Festival)

What if everything we believe and experience is an illusion-a fantasy designed to make us forget all that’s important and create a kind of collective amnesia? Are we all alone on our own private stages? Is there anything out there in the darkness? Are we who we say we are, or are we just pretending?

A deceptively simple piece of theatre, which playfully but profoundly leads us to question, not only the nature of reality, but the very nature of existence itself. A man standing in a pool of light wittily deconstructs the theatrical experience while offering parallel insight into modern life.

“An intelligent and exhilarating monologue, performed with a conjurer’s elan by David Calvitto …. he stands on stage and deconstructs everything he is doing – the entire theatre-going experience. It’s funny and cute, but just when you think you’ve got the joke, the monologue lurches into darker, more invigorating territory, and you start to realise that the show is deadly serious. … The Event is a wake-up call to anyone who has ever wondered why it is that we know all the details of Jordan and Pete’s marriage breakup, but can’t say how many Iraqis have died in the Iraq war. It deliberately and cruelly destroys illusion: it makes us see how the trick is done, and challenges us to rise from our safe seats in the comforting dark and protest.”      The Guardian

“American David Calvitto performs John Clancy’s monologue with aplomb. He’s a mix of droll Woody Allen and charming Steve Martin in a nice suit. The play probably won’t send us protesting into the streets but its beautifully written and does make you think. How do we know what’s real and what’s not? It’s great fun and, in the hands of Calvitto, highly entertaining.”       Adelaide Advertiser

 

The Tailor of Inverness

Dogstar Theatre (Scotland)

DogstarA story of journeys, of how a boy who grew up on a farm in Galicia, Poland, came to be a tailor in Inverness. His life spanned most of the 20th century. His story is not straightforward.

He was taken prisoner by the Soviets in 1939 and forced to work east of the Urals, then freed in an amnesty after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. He then joined the thousands of Poles who travelled to Tehran, then Egypt, to be integrated into the British Army, fighting in North Africa and Italy. He was then resettled in Britain in 1948, joining his brother in Glasgow. This is the story he told.

But there is another story, and perhaps a third and fourth one, for in order to survive, he had to adopt different identities. Like all immigrants, the tailor had to adapt and he did that very successfully, integrating himself into the fabric of Highland life. And fabric was perhaps the most important medium through which he achieved this. He made a variety of clothes for thousands of people, including himself, constructing the outward trappings which play a part in defining hwo we are. Fabric. Fabrication.

Crossing the borders from Poland to Russia to Iran to Egypt to Italy to Germany to Scotland, the fable reflects on the Second World War but is personal, intimate and rooted in two cultures: Galicia and the Scottish Highlands. The play uses the central metaphor of the tailor and his fabric. Layers of ghostly clothes are projected on to with a series of still and moving images from the tailor’s past and present-day Ukraine. The performance combines storytelling, songs, poetry and physicality with a rich soundscape of live fiddle music and effects.

The Tailor of Inverness previewed at the Arches Theatre, Glasgow on July 29, 2008 and opened at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh on July 31, 2008. In the meantime the production toured the globe. Most of the production’s numerous performances to date have been sold out.

Kill the Dog

Dad´s Garage (Atlanta)

killthedog1-websiteMake your own blockbuster, or come and watch Kevin and Amber make one right in front of you.

Based on Save the Cat, a famous guide to Hollywood screen writing, Kevin Gillese (of RAPID FIRE fame) and Amber Nash developed a new Improv format that works with – and goofs on – the Hollywood movie formulas that you find in every other film.

Squatters

by Joshua Crone

After a few drinks in a downtown bar, he takes her home to his squat – an abandoned flat in a building overlooking Ground Zero. Is this a one-night stand, or have they met before?

International theatre company Axis Mundi takes a darkly comic look at the mass hysteria that swept America and the world in the wake of the September 11th attacks, with asides on the geopolitical ramifications of bad sex, the art of tactical bed-making and the occult significance of sharing a hairbrush.

Lovepuke

by Duncan Sarkies

lovepuke website 200 - 1(Girl) I want hold him
(Boy) I want to sleep with her
(Girl) I want to kiss him
(Boy) I want to sleep with her
(Girl) I want to have his babies
(Boy) I want to sleep with her

Everyone knows it. Everyone’s been there.

The trouble is, everyone has a different set of rules.

But what’s it all about anyway? Aren’t all modern day relationships a dysfunctional battlefield? A series of mind games? A struggle for status?

lovepuke_websiteOh, I know yours isn’t – but I bet you know of someone’s who’s is!

If so then come and chuckle contentedly at eight people who aren’t you make a mess of their lives in love

Love.

Or more precisely, the Game of Love: ‘Making the move’, ‘Elation’, ‘Sex’, ‘Argument’ then ‘Depression’. Sound familiar? Of course it does.

Image: Clare Molloy