Written by: Nobel Prize Winner Herta Müller
Adapted for stage by: Mihaele Panainte
Translated by: Dr Jozefina Komporaly
Directed by: Natália Gleason-Nagy
This is a first rehearsal, open to the public, for a fully staged workshop of the play which will be shown at the main festival on June 23.
Lowlands is an Eastern-European Our Town set in Ceausescu's Romania. Panainte’s modular dramaturgy releases voices from our collective consciousness and creates performative space to witness our silences morning fresh and decades old. Lowlands is both a memory play and surrealist vision animated from a child's perspective. It is with awe and love that we call on community to gather around this version of Herta Müller’s text on its 42nd anniversary of a first publication. Together with her words we will celebrate the divine resistance that girls carry in their soul the world over for all of us.
10 min Introductory Context Lecture by dramaturg Katie Rey Bogdan
40 min Lowlands Staged Reading
20 minutes Lowlands Lieder
Followed by a Community Conversation facilitated by Patrick Crawley Phd
Anticipated total running time 90 minutes
The staged reading will be followed by contrasting high-art afterlife a child-size concert inspired by the german musical tradition of Lieder as composed by Matthew Brown. We will close with a community conversation about the topics contained in the show: creators and their processes (writing, directing, composing, dramaturgy) , imprints of war and dictatorship, life in rural communities, life as a cultural/ethnic minority, collective memory, the child's view, adapting/translating contemporary works etc..
Part of Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival honoring Vaclav Havel, produced by the Václav Havel Center (VHC) and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association.
ABOUT THE 2024 REHEARSAL FOR TRUTH INTERNATIONAL THEATER FESTIVAL
Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival, honoring Václav Havel, is a showcase of contemporary European theater organized each year in New York City. Conceived in 2017 as a shared endeavor of the Václav Havel Center (VHC) and Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA), the festival honors the legacy of Czech playwright, dissident and political thinker Vaclav Havel.
Each edition of Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival addresses current sociopolitical trends in Central and Eastern Europe, offering New York audiences a unique opportunity to witness the region’s theatrical zeitgeist.
The program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. The festival is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.