… but be fascinated by the AnglistenTheater
The AnglistenTheater is a student society that meets once a week to rehearse an English play. This semester’s production is The River by Jez Butterworth.
I got the chance of attending the premiere to keep you posted on how it was and if it is worth seeing!
So let me talk about the content first: the main character is a man who loves fishing and who owns a hut alongside a river. He invites his girlfriend to come; not only to have a little holiday but mostly because he wants her to learn how to fish. And there is one kind of fish that caught his interest in particular – the sea trout that is particularly hard to catch. But it doesn’t stay there for there is not only one woman but here comes the twist, a second one and lastly, who do the earrings in the bathroom belong to?
The 90-minute play takes place in just the one room of the hut so don’t expect crazy changes of scenery. This means that the performance of the actors in their dialogs becomes even more important to impress the audience. And there are only four actors involved and only two on stage at the same time during the whole play. This sets the expectations high. However, I can assure you I was not disappointed. While the dialogs and indirect speech in the same are a very important part of the plot, the actors did an incredibly good job in performing their roles.
The Man, played by Kujtim Avdija, has practically 100 percent stage time and a few quite long monologues which he mastered with ease. Kujtim plays his role expressively.
The Woman, who is played by Mirjam Kraft, has a beautiful voice, which welcomes the audience to the play by singing a part of William Butler Yeats’s “The Song of Wandering Aengus.” The longer the play the more freely she fulfilled her role and shone especially in the humorous dialogues.
Sarah Dengel, who played the other Woman, also has a beautiful singing voice and could easily add depth and a dramatic touch to her character, which I enjoyed a lot. She delivered a brilliant performance when it came to the confronting scene between the man and the other woman.
While it was the first main role for all three of them the majority already had acting experience, which isn’t a requirement to join the group. Also, a very supportive spirit from the whole AnglistenTheater Team could be felt, as a play consists of more than just the actors, but also of the staff behind the scenes.
Even though I enjoyed learning a lot about fish and sea trout; the hidden depth of the play really lies in the dialogues that, behind all the fishing, tell the story of a lonely man who tries to find consistent love. Finally, I can only congratulate the AnglistenTheater and director Rudolf Beck for a marvelous opening night.
The guitar music that reaches out at me as I enter Hörsaal II to watch this term’s production of the Anglistentheater is soothing, somewhat relaxing. It fits the scene I see on stage where two young children (Lea Bess, Tara Vogel; Milla Hünig, Midori Tran) and a nurse (Julia Teuchner) are playing quietly with a toy ship. However, the lapping of rain and low rumbling of thunder in the background announce imminent disaster.
It was the perfect interaction of all relevant factors that made me like this theatre play so much. The casting is spot on, from the bigger roles to the smaller ones, such as the Corinthian women (Kristina Becker, Jasmin Gall, Lucie Marchand), Jason’s attendant (Kathrin Bayer) or the King of Athens, Aegeus (Baris Kirat). I especially loved Lotte’s performance of Medea, perfectly portraying her as a grieving yet strong and independent woman with a sprinkle of madness in her eyes. Not only were the performances amazing; the sound and costumes need to be praised, too. Medea and Jason are both wearing harem pants and look unkempt, which makes it clear that they are two of a kind. They stand out against the Corinthians, all dressed neatly, all the women wearing more modest make-up than Medea. Ominous music and thunderous rumbling are used to prepare the audience for upcoming disasters.
I left the play thinking about what I’d just experienced for quite a while. Can a broken heart really make you perform such evil actions? Do love and madness always go together? Is Medea strong or a psychopath? Or is she maybe both? The fact that it’s almost impossible not to think about these things afterwards shows just what a good job the Anglistentheater team has done. With this performance of Medea, they have once again surpassed themselves and exceeded my expectations, as they do every semester. So I highly recommend you watch one of their shows, which take place on Thursday the 07th, Friday 8th, Tuesday 12th and Thursday 14th at 7:45 pm in Hörsaal II here at Uni. Tickets can be ordered online with the order forms or bought at the Taschenbuchladen Krüger located near the Königsplatz.