DIE FACKEL - another Schubertiade

Scenic reading with Michael Maertens, Maria Happel, among others.

“…without a doubt Peter Turrini's finest work,” wrote DIE ZEIT after Claus Peymann's world premiere of ALPENGLÜHEN in 1993 at the Burgtheater, and even today, more than thirty years later, Turrini's play is a magnificent love letter to the theater: “a play about theater within theater, about being and appearance, loneliness and lost identity, reality and fiction. Just when you think you’ve recognized one of the characters, they transform into another,” says the author.

A blind, aging man lives in a lonely mountain hut, where he imitates the voices of extinct alpine animals in the service of tourism. He leads a life of partially imposed, partially chosen isolation. His connections to the world are a portable radio without batteries and the son of a farmer, who answers his questions about the world with the responses he has been drilled into him. Is the man really blind, and which story he tells about his blindness is true? Was he once – as he first claims – a journalist? Is he rather a former Nazi? Or a theater director? The blind man's only wish, a visit from a compassionate, educated woman, is fulfilled by the blind association. But who is this lady who finds her way to the seclusion and engages him in conversation about classical literature? The experienced prostitute, as she presents herself, the secretary of the blind association, who longs for perception, or is she an actress specializing in the role of the lover, the Juliet?

Chamber actor Michael Maertens, praised last summer as the “theater maker” at the Salzkammergut Festival Weeks, presents a character in which he unites comedic elements and depth of character; alongside him is chamber actress Maria Happel: For decades, the two have congenially embodied various love pairs in the world of theater.

With kind support from Marcus Meier