The King Bows and Kills 2006

Depicting individual space and time as a sequence of theatrical scenes.

at the LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, Auditorium
5./6. Mai 2006, 8 pm

A two-month study trip on the Danube led to an engagement with Herta Müller's autobiographical essay collection "Der König verneigt sich und tötet"
("The King Bows and Kills"). In this book she sketches her life as an ethnic German
in dictatorial Romania and her emigration to West Germany. An intensive engagement
with the phenomenon of cartography and adequate forms of representation for individual patterns of orientation ultimately led to the adaptation of this text as a theater play. Two protagonists portray memories of life under dictatorship and current feelings in the German "west". Cardboard boxes in a storage room enable them to create quickly changing spatial situations. Viewers move in this movable stage setting. Projections create different levels of time and space. The simultaneity and complexity of every mental world are visualized. The interplay of built space, language and film results
in a "space collage" that enables the performers to portray a life history.

with: Susanne Kellermayr und Anna Hauf
Music: Renald Deppe & Michael Bruckner
Director: Markus Kuppferblum
Stagedesign: Veronika Barnaš