Christoph Marthaler
Das Weinen (Das Wähnen)
© © Gina Folly ©
© © Gina Folly ©
© © Gina Folly ©
Direction, Christoph Marthaler
Based on the work by Dieter Roth
With Liliana Benini, Magne Håvard Brekke, Olivia Grigolli, Elisa Plüss, Nikola Weisse, Susanne-Marie Wrage
Scenography, Duri Bischoff
Costumes, Sara Kittelmann
Sound, Thomas Wegner
Lights, Christoph Kunz
Dramaturgy, Malte Ubenauf
Musical direction and recordings, Bendix Dethleffsen
Production Schauspielhaus Zürich
Coproduction Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione (Modène) ; Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, centre dramatique national ; BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen) ; Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne ; International Summerfestival Kampnagel (Hambourg)
In association with Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, centre dramatique national ; Festival d’Automne à Paris
With the support from la Fondation suisse pour la culture Pro Helvetia
Thanks to Karin Seinsoth (Hauser & Wirth), Barbara Wien, Dirk Dobke, l’équipe de Kampnagel Hamburg et Franz Wassmer
With the support from Georg et Bertha Schwyzer-Winiker Stiftung
Director Christoph Marthaler, who is regularly invited to the Festival d'Automne, likes to observe the most improbable accidents of life to invent a musical theatre with sarcastic humour and light-hearted enjoyment.
With his latest creation, Das Weinen, he pays homage to the artist Dieter Roth in a choral and musical comedy.
On Christoph Marthaler’s list of major influences, artist Dieter Roth (1930-1998) holds a prominent place. In 1980, the famous visual artist/performance artist gave the young Marthaler – already a musician but yet to become a stage director – a copy of his book Das Weinen. Das Wähnen (Tränenmeer 4). This object has stayed with Marthaler, who has dipped into its content to nourish his works, particularly one poem in which a “fat calf” is one of the lead characters.
As any formal endeavor was in his view doomed to destruction, Dieter Roth became particularly known for his sculptures made of perishable materials such as cheese, chocolate or sugar. This profound concern for anything that relates to the slow erosion of passing time – chocolate but the body and the mind as well – unquestionably echoes Christoph Marthaler’s theater.
It’s no wonder then that the director, forty years after their one and unforgettable encounter, chose to transpose Das Weinen (Das Wähnen) to the stage, paying tribute to Dieter Roth’s contention that his writings were the cornerstone of his oeuvre. “Nothing matters more than writing, or rather ruminating. Making up sentences”, the artist said. Marthaler sees those sentences as a response to the current political tendency for individualism and insularity: “Welcome, tears of all kinds, welcome, world of contradictions”!
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Performed in German with French surtitles