Directors: Teemu Mäki & Arja Tiili
(www.teemumaki.com & www.arjatiili.fi)
Script: Teemu Mäki.
Choreography: Arja Tiili.
Performers (actors & dancers): Maria Ahlroth, Pelle
Heikkilä, Viktor Idman, Eleni Pierides and Jenni
Urpilainen.
Scenography and clothing: Lars Idman.
Arrangements of live music: Iiro Ollila.
Choice of music: Teemu Mäki & Arja Tiili.
Light design: Ada Halonen.
Produced by Teater Viirus & Arja Tiili & Co
/Intomieliset ry.
WOYZECKMATERIAL s a version of and commentary on
Georg Büchner's (1814–1837) play Woyzeck (1837). Only a
few sentences from Büchner's original text have been
used in Woyzeckmaterial. In this play dance, video and
music are as important as dialogue and narrative. The
basic tone of the work is Brechtian, as the characters
both play the original, Büchnerian roles, and also
verbally comment on their own character and story as if
from the outside – i.e. a very basic alienation effect,
verfremdungseffekt, is in use.
LANGUAGE
Written in Finnish, translated to
Swedish, premiere in Swedish,
with Finnish surtitles. English
translation is in the works.
PRO (Woyzeck speaks)
"Woyzeck is the first famous play, which critisizes
simultaneously all the following: 1) the state, 2) the
military, 3) the fanatic belief in technological
progress, and 4) the bourgeois nuclear family. And about
the fifth line of thought, of Woyzeck's – both of the
play and of its main character – of Woyzeck's radical
relationship with Nature, how he anticipates that
mankind with all its machinery will not win over Nature,
and how on one hand he is horrified by mankind's
upcoming defeat and on the other hand he is bewitched by
Nature's grimness, of all this I could talk about
endlessly..."
CONTRA (Drum Major speaks)
"...what I find so fuckin' irritating is that kind
of daydreamers, that kind of eternal Woyzecks, shitty
martyr-idiots, who first go and work shitty jobs for a
ridiculously small pay or live as spouses of some
narcissistic asshole year after year sobbing and then
when no one comes to rescue them with a white horse, no
matter how hard they have, with a screamingly loud
understatement, signalled that they've been terribly
exploited and politically ass-raped, then they in the
end just fade away into the addictland or loony bin – or
stab a bloke. Or stab a broad. And stab a couple of kids
too as a bonus."
TAGS
Working life. Nuclear family. Honor Killing. And
the Joy of life. Büchner, Brecht, Naomi Klein, Peter
Handke, Class society, Occupy movement and
Ecocatastrophe.
RECORDED MUSIC
Thomas Köner (1965–): "Kanon (Part 1: Brohuk)"
(1994).
Rodion Shchedrin (1932–): Carmen Suite (1967), parts 9
and 2. Recording: State Chamber Orchestra, Moscow
Virtuosi, Vladimir Spivakov (1984).
William Byrd (1539–1623): "Hughe Ashton's Ground", Glenn
Gould's (1932–1982) recording.
Mary J. Blige (1971–): "No More Drama" (2001),
Thunderpuss remix.
Scion: "Part 7 (7.1 Cyrus - Enforcement 7.2 Basic
Channel - Phylyps Trak Ⅱ/Ⅲ)" (2002).
Alec Empire (1972–): "When You've Reached Your Peak It's
Time to Die" (1996).
Val Rosing (with Henry Hall and His Orchestra): "Teddy
Bears' Picnic / Jos metsään haluat mennä nyt" (1932).
LIVE MUSIC, SUNG BY THE PERFORMERS
"Yksin oot sinä ihminen", composer Kaj Chydenius
(1939–), lyrics V. A. Koskenniemi (1885–1962).
"Taivas on sininen ja valkoinen", traditional.
"Olen kommunisti", composer Eero Ojanen (1943–), lyrics
Nazim Hikmet (1902–1963).
"Und Endlich", composer Hanns Eisler (1898–1962), lyrics
Peter Altenberg (1859–1919).
VIDEOS
All video clips used in the play are by Teemu Mäki,
except Ghost Ride (2010), which is an autonomous
video work by Timo
Bredenberg (1984–). Also, Teemu Mäki's
"Hitler-Woyzeck", made for this play, is a detourned
extract from Oliver Hirschbiegel's (1957–) wonderful
film Untergang (The Downfall / Perikato,
2004).
