...Incomparably gripping stories about people
Falk Richter stages Chekhov's The Seagull
For author and stage-director Falk Richter this season had an exciting beginning. At the same time, on the same evening, two of his plays were given their world premieres, one in Zurich and one in Bochum. In Zurich he coupled his satirical anti-war drama Sieben Sekunden/In God We Trust with Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Für eine bessere Welt which is simply hell on earth and Richter himself staged the production. Matthias Hartmann presented Richter’s Electronic City in Bochum. Both dramas have stylised text surfaces and make use of sophisticated technical equipment with several video and computer simulations. Both take place in an aura of lost orientation and identity.
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| For his Salzburg debut Falk Richter requested Chekhov’s The Seagull. |
Richter now hopes that the successful start to the season will come to an equally exciting end at the Salzburg Festival. He is venturing into something unusual for him. Until now he has been primarily preoccupied with the work of contemporary authors but for his Salzburg debut the young stage-director requested Chekhov’s The Seagull; it will be his first Chekhov production. “The time has now come for me to stage classical texts”, he explains. “And Chekhov still is and always was one of the most important authors for me”. Born in Hamburg in 1969, Richter completed the typical jump-jet career but hardly had he been catapulted to the utmost heights before he caused extreme controversy. Nevertheless, with half a dozen dramas of his own and several productions at major houses such as the Berlin Schaubühne, the Schauspielhaus in Hamburg and in Zurich, he has been able to establish a firm reputation for himself.
Until now he has appeared to be primarily at home with productions of contemporary plays. He staged his own experimental and critical dramas about globalisation, about the predominance of clichés in the world of media nowadays, and the desperate search for identity. However, he has also staged a great variety of works by his dramatist colleagues such as Jon Fosse, Marc Ravenhill, Caryl Churchill, Sarah Kane and Roland Schimmelpfennig. A remarkable spectrum, from the novel, shrill and psychedelic Polaroids by Ravenhill to Fosse’s silent, intensive scenes about missing one another in Die Nacht singt ihre Lieder. The common characteristic in these stylistically very different works was the very precise and subtle work with the actors.
From here we come full circle to Chekhov’s The Seagull. It is clear to which of the characters Richter feels a special affinity. “I am interested in the artistic drama about a young author and stage-director who makes great and courageous claims and whose radicalism gradually dies away,” he says. “Is he talented or not? Are his surroundings mediocre? Will he lose strength the older he becomes?” This drama set in the artistic milieu of actors and writers, described by the author as a comedy, of course also shows how young people’s hopes and dreams are dashed because of the selfish older generation.
This is where Falk Richter intends to intervene. He is fascinated by the duel between Konstantine and the ageing Trigorin and by the resistance which the young man “experiences from the assertive old people, who want to prevent him from being successful because they still consider themselves the young generation. I am now about fifteen years older than Konstantine and have not yet arrived at Trigorin. I am just in between these two lives – this interests me – and no one can tell stories about people as grippingly as Chekhov.“
Karin Kathrein
Anton Tschechow
THE SEAGULL
New production (performed in German)
Stage director Falk Richter
Sets Katrin Hoffmann
Lighting design Carsten Sander
Video Meika Dresenkamp
Music Paul Lemp
Dramaturge Jens Hillje
Irina Nikolajewna Arkadina Sylvana Krappatsch
Konstantin Gawrilowitsch Trepljow Mark Waschke
Pjotr Nikolajewitsch Sorin Peter Brombacher
Boris Alexejewitsch Trigorin André Jung
Nina Michailowna Saretschnaja Yvon Jansen
Mascha Jule Böwe
Premiere 26 July 2004, 7 p.m.
Further performances
27, 28, 29, 30 and 31 July, 7 p.m.
1, 3, 4 and 5 August, 7 p.m.
Landestheater
Telephone +43 (0) 662 8045-500
Telefax +43 (0) 662 8045-555
E-mail: info@salzburgfestival.at
Production photos © Karl Forster