by Goran Ferčec (text) and Gregor Schwellenbach (music)

A production of the fringe ensemble

With: Maciek Brzoska, David Fischer, Justine Hauer, Nicole Kersten, Manuel Klein, Bettina Marugg, Andreas Meidinger, Laila Nielsen, Valentin Stroh

Director: Frank Heuel
Composition: Gregor Schwellenbach
Space and costumes: Annika Ley, Lisa Schiller-Witzmann

Premiere as part of VOR DEN HUNDEN: March 01, 2014, Schaubühne Lindenfels, Leipzig
Premiere, extracted from VOR DEN HUNDEN: March 19, 2015, theaterimballsaal, Bonn

Goran Ferčec’s play ARBEITSSCHLACHTEN, staged by Frank Heuel, musically congenially realized by Gregor Schwellenbach.

Is it conceivable to contextualize a tourist in Greece, Croatian workers on hunger strike, and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion? And where would that lead? – With his play ARBEITSSCHLACHTEN, the Croatian-born author Goran Ferčec proves that this is not only possible, but that an impressive play can be created from these elements, both in form and content.

The story is told by a customer of an electronics supermarket: He is in Greece. He enters Saturn’s realm and stands in front of a wall with hundreds of screens. The time is now. The man will purchase a CD, the St. Matthew Passion by Bach – a special offer. He will see images on the monitor wall, images of the crisis. He will escape from Saturn’s realm. When he returned to his homeland, neither the images of the crisis nor the music of Bach left his mind. The form of the baroque passion is combined with the real story of women workers in a Croatian textile factory who are vainly striking for their wages.

The fringe ensemble now presents ARBEITSSCHLACHTEN – extracted from VOR DEN HUNDEN – in full-length, staged by Frank Heuel, musically congenially realized by Gregor Schwellenbach.

The final chorus is grandiose, in which Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” from the realm of the child-eating media hero Saturn meets the hunger strike of female textile workers cheated of their wages. (General-Anzeiger Bonn)

A production of Völkerschlachten GbR/fringe ensemble.
supported by the Doppelpass fund of the