1. 48 june 2016
Ms. Barbara Wolfram glides into Café
Goldegg, a stone’s throw from Belvedere
Palace. No jewellry or make up. Nothing
fancy. She takes a moment. Gently spo-
ken, she begins. We sit, mindful of our
comfortandprivilege.
Something the .EVOLve Theater Com-
pany, which she co-founded and directs,
doesnottakeforgranted. Asaresponseto
the plight of Vienna’s asylum seekers, this
established ensemble of exchange stu-
dentsfromalloverEuropehasassimilated
eightrefugeesintotheirlatestplay,IThink
We Called it Family. A one-hour explora-
tion of familial ties, this original produc-
tionwillbehostedforthreeperformances
at the Schauspielhaus this month. Wol-
fram’s mission is so heartfelt, that taking
the actors into her fold might be the more
pertinentdescription.
“Ihaveaverypersonalrelationshipwith
refugees,”WolframtoldMetropole.“Weare
asking questions. We asked what is miss-
ing. And it was just wanting someone to
talkto,normalthingslikegoingtothecine-
ma or having someone to have a coffee
with.Thisissomethingwecanactuallyof-
fer.Wecanbuildasupportsystem.”
WHAT’SYOUR STORY?
Wolfram has the quiet confidence that be-
fits an actress and accomplished student
of psychology, with an additional PhD
from Vienna’s Film Academy. Working
with non-professionals , this promises to
be immediate theater, adding a risk factor
that a fully prepared script might avoid.
Here an Afghan woman grows up feeling
lessworthythanherbrother,theproperty
of her father or husband; here is a young
Kurdishmanwhosefamilyhidtheirbooks
in the backyard, who talks about what
freedomofspeechnowmeanstohimhere
in Austria; here are the conversations of
three young men from Afghanistan and
Turkey, talking about a mother or father
who died when they were young, about
livingwithamissinghalf.
A few of her actors were in the recent
productionofElfriedeJelenek’sDieSchutz-
befohlenen (those in need of protection),
which was gatecrashed by right-wing pro-
testers, leaving many of the audience
thinkingitwaspartoftheperformance.
“Well,IamnotJelinek.Ourproductionis
not about people en masse. Not about the
moment you leave the country,” says
Wolfram.“It is about the whole personality,
aboutwhatunitesus.Weallhaveamother,a
fatherandknowwhatitistohaveasibling.”
She lists endless questions to under-
mine the self-evident. “We have such pre-
pared answers for things. Our stories (we
tell) are like coins polished on one side:
Stories you tell, what you say about your-
self. And then we flip the coin, to the un-
polished side: Love, hate, troubles, what
pushes us away. We try to capture what is
goingonunderneath.”
Therefugeesarelikeus,yetdifferent.“It
is very hard to measure pain,” Wolfram
says. “Which is worse? They have lived
throughthethreatoflosingtheirlifeinSyr-
ia or Iraq. We have no idea about the
life-threateningpart.”
Twoofthecasthaveleftforfearoftheex-
posure, anything that might help authori-
ties find and punish family members still
back home. Wolfram quotes Hamlet: “But
breakmyheart,forImustholdmytongue.”
She is committed to the long haul, the de-
cadestocomewithherensemble.
A quick break and she has disappeared,
in an ephemeral moment, leaving an emp-
tyspace.Suchistheater.
IfAntonChekhovhadbeenapainter,his
palette would have been bleak, with sud-
densplashesofred.Anastuteobserverof
the human soul, he usually portrayed his
tormented characters as misunderstood
andhelpless.
The eponymous main character of his
play Ivanov is a case in point. A mid-
dle-aged man with a sick wife and large
debts,Ivanov(JanThümer)isconstantly
drowning in self-pity and depression. He
nonetheless rejects the support of his
friendsandtheloveofhiswifeAnna(Ste-
fanieReinsperger),co-existingwiththem
in his own separate reality. He desires a
“newlife”–whichhebelievestofindinthe
arms of Sasha (Nadine Quittner), daugh-
ter of his friend Lebedev (Günter Franz-
meier) and his creditor Zinaida (Steffi
Krautz) – but still can’t bring himself to
leavehisdesperationbehind.
Noted Hungarian director Victor
Bodo’s Vienna debut effectively conveys
Ivanov’s helplessness by contrasting it
with the up-beat mood of the other fig-
ures, who also live pointless lives but do
not see the tragedy in it. Unfortunately,
while the characters expertly underline
thefeaturestheypossess,asenseofexag-
geration persists throughout the drama.
The excessive nudity and drug use, Bor-
kin’svulgarjokes,thedrawingonthewall
Ivanov paints during his soliloquy, the
meanobservationsLebedevmakesabout
his greedy wife or the youthful Sasha,
which seem more like those of a spoiled
child than a dreamer, simply fail to con-
nect,andrelatabilitysuffers.
The enduring charm of Russian litera-
ture is in how it haunts the soul, digging
deepintoyourperceptionsuntilyouinad-
vertentlyreflectonyourownlife.
performance
Family Matters
The .EVOLve Theater company delves into the love that binds
by Brian Hatfield
play
Ivanov
Fin-de-siècle Slavic despair takes
center stage at the Volkstheater
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