{"id":1597,"date":"2011-11-30T14:20:43","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T22:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=1597"},"modified":"2011-11-30T14:32:01","modified_gmt":"2011-11-30T22:32:01","slug":"german-play-thrives-on-student-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2011\/11\/30\/german-play-thrives-on-student-collaboration\/","title":{"rendered":"German play thrives on student collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Influential German playwright and director Bertolt Brecht considered the theatre a laboratory for dramatic experiments. And now University of Victoria German studies instructor Elena Pnevmonidou is conducting an experiment of her own by staging an 174-year-old German play by Georg B\u017achner.<\/p>\n

Woyzeck: The Choreography of a Murder<\/em> is a collaboration between UVic theatre students and German students, and is co-directed by four of the theatre students.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Woyzeck looks at issues of insanity, murder, and the justice system (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a couple times where the directors get split and we don\u2019t know what we\u2019re gonna do,\u201d says co-director Dan Scowcroft.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then I step in,\u201d interjects Pnevmonidou. \u201cI am by nature very anti-authoritarian, so I had to discover my inner autocrat,\u201d she says with a laugh, \u201cbecause in the beginning it was all, \u2018Okay, let\u2019s all just work together,\u2019 and of course people went in their own directions.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took a few weeks to figure out the kinks of the production. Each director has a different area of expertise and they take turns at the helm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a rotating schedule for who\u2019s actually driving the ship,\u201d says Scowcroft.<\/p>\n

The play is based on the true story of the first German to plead insanity as a defence in court. Woyzeck is subjected to an unending string of dehumanizing humiliations which culminate in him murdering his unfaithful lover.<\/p>\n

Scowcroft appreciates having the safety net of fellow directors to consult when problems arise. One of the biggest problems encountered during the preparation of Woyzeck: The Choreography of a Murder<\/em> was, well, choreographing the murder.<\/p>\n

Each director in turn took a stab, so to speak, at blocking the scene. Scowcroft wanted Woyzeck to embrace his ex-lover as he slipped a knife in her. Another co-director taught the actors safe stage combat. Then they had to decide where to put the body down.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the end, we still hadn\u2019t figured it out,\u201d says Scowcroft. \u201cWe got it to a point where we liked how it looked and everything, and then a fellow student leaned over and said, \u2018Actually, he\u2019s supposed to stab her seven times.\u2019 It didn\u2019t say that in the English version.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pnevmonidou says part of the problem was that the actors were still reading from scripts at that point.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey also were trying to stab each other holding books. And a knife. And each other,\u201d laughs Scowcroft.<\/p>\n

Scowcroft says Pnevmonidou wasn\u2019t actually there that day, and admits \u201cthat\u2019s probably why there was a lot of experimentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woyzeck: The Choreography of a Murder<\/strong>
\n8pm Wednesday, November 30 and Thursday, December 1
\nPhoenix Theatre, $5
\nfinearts.uvic.ca\/theatre\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Influential German playwright and director Bertolt Brecht considered the theatre a laboratory for dramatic experiments. And now University of Victoria German studies instructor Elena Pnevmonidou is conducting an experiment of her own by staging an 174-year-old German play by Georg B\u017achner. Woyzeck: The Choreography of a Murder is a collaboration between UVic theatre students and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-november-30-2011"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1597"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1676,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597\/revisions\/1676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}