Announcing Trafika Europe Radio Theater — a new mini-series bi-weekly in April and May, 2021, featuring European plays translated into English and adapted for radio!
- Saturday 10 April 2021: Eurostar (Austria)
- Saturday 24 April 2021: Decomposed Theatre (Romania)
- Saturday 08 May 2021: King Gordogan (Croatia)
Performances become available to listen from 2pm EDT in New York = 7pm BST in London = 8pm CEST in Paris, Berlin, and Zagreb = 9pm EEST in Istanbul, Sofia, and Bucharest, right here:
Each performance is followed by a conversation with the creators, hosted by Trafika Europe director Andrew Singer.
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Our next performance: Decomposed Theatre (Austria)
Saturday 24 April 2021 at 2pm EDT in New York = 7pm BST in London = 8pm CEST in Paris & Berlin = 9pm EEST in Bucharest
A Trafika Europe Radio / Romanian Cultural Institute New York / University of the Arts London (Research at Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon Colleges of Arts) production with support from Romanian Cultural Institute London
A trilogy of short pieces taken from Matéi Visniec’s modular play, “Decomposed Theatre”, translated by Jozefina Komporaly
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Performed here in a new audio adaptation, the author’s topical vision of three plagues descending on an unnamed town sheds light on the way we experience crisis and change today.
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Director: Kate O’Connor
Performer: Maria Forrester
Sound Designer: Sam Halmarack
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Following the performance, Trafika Europe director Andrew Singer will host a conversation with the writer and translator of this seminal work.
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Matéi Visniec (in Romanian, Matei Vișniec, born 1956) is a prolific writer of fiction, poetry and drama. His many awards include prizes from the Romanian Writers’ Union, the Romanian Theatre Union (UNITER), the Avignon Festival, the French Society of Writers and Composers, and the 2016 Jean Monnet Award for European Literature. In his native Romania, Visniec has achieved quasi-canonical status since the fall of Soviet Socialism (his work was banned prior to 1989); most professional and amateur theatres stage his work on an ongoing basis, and the Suceava Theatre was named in the playwright’s honor.
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Our first performance: Eurostar – a roadmovie as a chamber play (Austria)
Saturday 10 April 2021 at 2pm EDT in New York = 7pm BST in London = 8pm CEST in Vienna
This performance is followed by a discussion with the play’s co-authors Barbara Kadletz and Ursula Knoll, and director and main actor, Stephanie Schmiderer.
Authors Stefan Zweig (1881 – 1942) and Joseph Roth (1894 – 1939) return as ghosts to the Europe of 2020. They accompany a literary scholar and her trainee during a research trip on a train journey from Vienna to London. Between tragedy and comedy, their attempts oscillate to position themselves on current developments in Europe. This causes affection and rejection, from which changing alliances and unbridgeable differences emerge. Everything is in a state of change: Europe through which they travel, the relationships they have with each other, and their self-reference.
Cast: Yarina Gurtner, Stephanie Schmiderer, Alexander Fennon, Vitus Wieser
Director; US Adaptation and Translation: Stephanie Schmiderer
About the Artists:
Ursula Knoll lives as a writer and editor in Vienna. She trained as a playwright at the Burgtheater Vienna and with the playwright’s project Wiener Wortstätten. Plays and other texts: www.ursulaknoll.net
Barbara Kadletz lives as a freelance author in Vienna and works in the wonderful bookshop of Petra and Oliver Hartlieb (www.hartliebs.at). Her debut novel “Im Ruin” was published in spring 2021.
Stephanie Schmiderer is a director, stage and film actress in classical and avant-garde theatre and independent film. As a cultural anthropologist (Ph.D.) she lectures at the University of Vienna and is published in the field of dance and performance anthropology. She splits her time between Vienna and New York City.
Thanks to Austrian Cultural Forum New York for their support.