A theatre play exploring environmental themes will be developed. It will have as its goal the creative dissemination of the main message of the project – the necessity of climate protection.
Shakespeare and the Golden Toad
By Sylvia Rotter and Magdalena Bruckmüller
In this play we interweave – in the manner of Shakespeare – three different strings of stories:
We start with a rehearsal of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” where the king and queen of the fairies have a quarrel which contains Titania’s famous speech describing ecological disasters. Strangely enough, although written 425 years ago, this can also be interpreted as (perhaps the first ever) environmental speech as Titania sadly notices “And through this distemperature we see the seasons alter“.
From there we move on to two parallel actions. One is the scientific explanation of the mad professor Clever Clever about ecological facts and why we have to take action now. The facts are so dramatic, that it will keep the audience almost hooked to their seats. The other is the story of a young Romanian man, who makes his fortune in the world, wants to do good but gets increasingly deeper involved in consumerism. Scenes and collages, pantomime and music, will be held together by a love story and by poetic moments.
In the end, love to nature and to a girl conquers all.
The aim of the play is to playfully make young people aware of the urgency of waking up to the impending ecological disaster in order to lessen or avoid them. The play will end with a plea to the audience not to stay in their seats but take action and shift their priorities towards protecting nature.
The script will be freely available in German, Romanian and English.
Length: presumably 70 minutes
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Below is an abstract from the play, which is planned to be the second scene:
An old homeless woman
She is sorting her perfectly tucked and arranged pieces of clothing, moving them from one shopping cart to the other. In the background, one can see a beautiful park, the “Burggarten”. It is winter. The scene is accompanied by suitable sounds and noises.
Tramp: (mumbles incomprehensibly at first, then increasingly clearly) Holes, holes, they are digging everywhere. Deep holes. There are holes everywhere. What for? What for? No one knows. Why? Holes. Here. Everywhere. Deep in the earth. Everything unfinished. In the whole world. Holes. Holes are graves. Graves for people who don’t know why they are digging. Big holes for little people. They then fall in the holes. The people in the holes are cold. Brr. (Pause) Where is my life?
Download the theatre play here:
RO: SHAKESPEARE ŞI BROASCA AURIE