The German State Theatre Timișoara is preparing the first premiere of the season 2016/2017: the play “The Fire Raisers” by Max Frisch, directed by Gábor Tompa.
The premiere is taking place on
Friday, 16th September 2016, at 7,30 pm,
the next performance is on
Saturday, 17th September 2016, at 7,30pm.
The performances take place in the hall of the German State Theatre and feature translation in Romanian.
Directing “The Fire Raisers” is attributed to Gábor Tompa, making this his first staging at the GSTT. Set and light design are done by Helmut Stürmer, costumes by Carmencita Brojboiu, masks by Ilona Varga-Járó, and video projections by Ovidiu Zimcea. The original music is composed Vasile Șirli, while Florin Fieroiu is the choreographer for the show. Cast reunites actors Franz Kattesch, Enikő Blénessy, Ioana Iacob, Radu Vulpe, Rareș Hontzu, Konstantin Keidel, Ida Jarcsek-Gaza, Olga Török, Dana Borteanu, Isa Berger, Isolde Cobeț, Tatiana Sessler-Toami, Silvia Török, Oana Vidoni and Anne-Marie Waldeck.
Gábor Tompa has done numerous shows in the country as well as abroad, in USA, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Serbia, Great Britain, Hungary, Germany, Canada, France and Spain. He has been awarded with several UNITER awards, the Hevesi Sándor award and has received numerous titles, like the title of Honoured Artist of the Republic of Hungary in 2002 and of Ambassador of Hungarian Culture in 2009.
”The Fire Raisers” parable – entitled in subtitle as “a didactic play without a moral” – speaks of the failure of the common man to take action against an imminent threat: strangers show up one by one in the cosmetics producer Biedermann house.The grotesque comic and the critical accents accompany the action’s development towards an outcome, which with each step becomes inevitable. The lack of reaction on behalf of the lead character was sometimes interpreted as a reflection on the conduit the allowed the ascension of a dictator such as Adolf Hitler.
The play reflects the socio-political topicality of Romania and Europe. Connected to this aspect, director Gábor Tompa explains the following: “The play gained an acute topicality due to the incidents that happened and still happen, in the inland of Romania and in the world. In the first place, it is about terrorism, a phenomenon that can be compared to the phantom of the apocalypse or a permanent state of war. […] On the other hand, there is the phenomenon of political correctness that is easily a subject to power surge and therefore gains grotesque and absurd dimensions. It seems to me that also in “Biedermann and the Arsonists” such a measure of unconsciousness and powerlessness exists – but in the protagonist I also discover a cowardice when he keeps on holding onto the political correctness with his wife or at least tries desperately to maintain the picture of political correctness in his family, where in fact the relationships have turned very mechanically and leave empty frames.”
Andreea Andrei
Press referent