Der Besuch der alten Dame
A tragicomic play about the line between justice and revenge
A wealthy elderly woman visits her birth village and presents the people living there with a dilemma: she will help solve the financial problems of the village and all the villagers by offering a billion, on one condition...
Festival Holland Festival
Run time 140 minutes
Genre Theatre
Language German
Surtitles Dutch, English
The condition Claire Zachanassian poses is that one villager, Alfred III, will be sentenced to death. When she was young, this man got her pregnant out of wedlock and then left her, resulting in her social exclusion and banishing from the village. The villagers struggle with the choice. Alfred III ends up appearing before a village tribunal, fearing for his life.
Where the cast of the original tragicomic play from 1956 consisted of thirty actors, Nicolas Stemann stages this piece with a cast of only two actors, Patrycia Ziółkowska and Sebastian Rudolph, who take on all the roles together. -|- Their performance is accompanied with energetic live music and video that addresses current issues surrounding gender inequality and consumerism. With this original approach, Stemann underlines the power of fiction in theatre, where each actor can step in and out of any role, and explores the many perspectives in this story through them. What is the difference between revenge and justice? And how does a victim turn into a perpetrator?
Credits
text Friedrich Dürrenmatt cast Sebastian Rudolph, Patrycia Ziolkowska, Camilla Sparksss, Theaterjahr direction Nicolas Stemann set design Claudia Lehmann costumes Marysol del Castillo lights Michel Güntert video collaboration Yannik Böhmer dramaturgyBenjamin von Blomberg, Laura Paetau audience development Silvan Gisler theatre pedagogy Manuela Runge, Theresa Künz production assistance Leila Vidal-Sephiha Lilli Unger, Johanna Bajohr, Mona Eglsoer, Sophia May, Dayen Tuskan, Katja Weppler, Ananda Schmidt, Annette Erismann, Bettina Meister, Christine Rippmann, Flavia Somalvico, Siegfried Fuchs intern production Lina Hasenfratz surtitles set-up Jakob Gerber, Agnieszka Fietz (Panthea) translation surtitles Charlotte Wührer (Panthea) surtitle operator Isabelle Koch, Holly Werner, Salome Bossard light Marco Schäfer soundHolger Wendt, Tim Huber video Claudia Lehmann, Jasmin Kruezi, Benjamin Hauser make-up Anita Brülisauer props Anna Harff, Simone Müller
About Holland Festival
Holland Festival is the largest international performing arts festival of the Netherlands and one of the oldest festivals of Europe. The festival was established in 1947 and will celebrate its 75-year anniversary in 2022.
It takes places every year, In June, in and around Amsterdam, at various locations, both indoors and outdoors, both large-scale and intimate, both online and offline.
This performance was made possible bygo
