About the production

Start

7 p.m.

End

9:15 p.m.

Shakespeare's sonnets are regarded as a highlight of Renaissance poetry and of European poetry in general. In artistic terms, they are on a par with the poet's dramas, which have always been a focal point of the Lausitz Festival's theatre productions. The Englishman's 154 lyrical masterpieces were published as a cycle in 1609. In them, a speaker addresses a young man and a mysterious, dark lady. In this triangle of textual-sexual desire, all the poems revolve around basic themes of human existence – love, beauty, transience, death - and unfold a polyphonic common ‘we’ in the intimate lyrical dialogue between »I« and »you«.

The theatricalisation of Shakespeare's sonnets is a tradition that will be continued at the opening of this year's Lausitz Festival. For the poems can be understood and staged as dramatic vignettes, as in them a speaker addresses an addressee and thus evokes a potentially dramatic event. And even if a counterpart is not audible, the lyrical speech always seems to be a response to an inaudible utterance or to provide the occasion for a subsequent reply. In any case, the space that Shakespeare's texts open up is a dialogue space. Its empty spaces awaken and fuel our visual and scenic imagination. In this respect, the transformation of lyrical speech into dramatic speech is obvious. The reading or recitation of a poem is transformed into a theatrical event.

Austrian theatre artist Michael Sturminger, who is at home as a director and author in all stage genres, brings Shakespeare's poetry into a lively dialogue with the beauty of the disused Louise briquette factory at the opening of this year's Lausitz Festival. He sends the audience on a scenic and musical journey through the inner and outer worlds of condensed language and coal dust. So he allows the audience to look inside the face and bowels of verse and industrial architecture.

Persistence through transformation – if you like, the old briquette factory and Shakespeare's lyrical monodramatic miniatures find a common denominator in this. Just as the factory's active days are long behind it, the beloved and coveted addressees of the sonnets are inevitably subject to transience. And just as the factory blossoms and survives anew and differently by virtue of its transformation into an industrial museum and a venue for cultural events, the lovers addressed in the sonnets awaken to new, eternal life through Shakespeare's poetry and its theatrical visualisation. For example, the 18th sonnet »Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?« states:

» […] But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.«

In this correspondence, the »Louise« briquette factory becomes a sensual and sensuous stage for a production of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Artists

Acting/Singing/Performance/Instruments: Wojo van Brouwer, Claudia Renner, Rino Murakami

as well as Crispin Hausmann, Jan Henri Müller, Leonie Pum, Klaudia Sobota, Flo Sohn, Leonard Tondorf, Sarah Wockenfuß

Stage/Lighting: Paul Sturminger, Manuel Biedermann

Electronic Soundtrack: Rino Murakami

Costumes: Marie Sturminger, Nina Samadi

Dramaturgy: Alexandra Althoff

Concept and Direction: Michael Sturminger

A co-production with Max Reinhardt Seminar Vienna and Salzburg Global Seminar Schloss Leopoldskron

Made possible by Sparkassenstiftung »Zukunft Elbe-Elster-Land«

Introductions by festival dramaturge Michael Höppner:
From the second performance on 25 August – 45 minutes before performance starts.

By bus & train to the event

Why don't you leave your car at home and come to the event by public transport? Click on the button to calculate your route. The destination is already pre-filled in the trip planner.

We owe this service for the Lausitz Festival to the transport associations VVO, VBB and ZVON.

Plan your trip

Special buses in operation

The Verkehrsmanagement Elbe-Elster will provide the following special buses as a feeder service for rail travellers from Berlin, Dresden, Cottbus and Leipzig.

Visitors pay nothing on the specified buses. The buses are free of charge for »Sonnet Factory« ticket holders.

Arrival:

24.August

BUS 560/526 from Bahnhof Doberlug-Kirchhain to Brikettfabrik Louise

16:50-17:10

(changeover: RB43 16:45 from Berlin and Cottbus, RE10 16:15 from Leipzig, RE8 16:26 from Dresden/ 16:33 IC2174 from Dresden)

25.August + 6.+7.September

BUS 560/526 from Bahnhof Bad Liebenwerda to Brikettfabrik Louise

17:40 -18:00

(changeover: RE11 17:32 from Dresden and Cottbus, RB49 17:25 from Leipzig and Berlin)

Departure:

24.August