Tuesday, November 9 | approx. 20:00 | Schauspielhaus | main stage
John Clancy:
THE EVENT
performed by David Calvitto [USA]
Could you imagine a better title for an opening show of a monodrama festival? But wait, till you’ve seen the performer…A man stands in a pool of light on the empty stage, claims to be an actor (but who else would you expect there). His monologue is intelligent, light and witty. He talks about the theatre, about a play, about “the event”. Then he starts deconstructing the entire theatre-going experience to draw striking parallels between stage and our everyday lives: What if all that we believe is happening to us in reality is just an illusion, a dodgy fantasy designed to make us forget all the important things and create a kind of collective amnesia? Is every one of us just a solo performer on a private stage? Are we in the dark or is it dark outside? Are we the ones that we think we are, or are we just pretending – all of us just good actors in a bad play? The monologue is funny and you get the jokes but there’s deadly seriousness behind all this cute lightness and effortlessness.
THE EVENT was one of the most praised shows of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2009: “…there are some [one-person plays] in which a single performer is gifted enough to rivet an audience. Such is the case with THE EVENT” (The London Times); “Absolutely superb theatre that will live long in the imagination…” (The Mirror); “…Calvitto is one of the funniest and cleverest performers around…” (The Herald).
David Calvitto, an actor from New York won several awards for THE EVENT – the most recent one was Best Actor Award at the Australian Adelaide Fringe Festival in March 2010.
directed by John Clancy
In cooperation with The English Theatre Berlin
language: English | running time: 60 minutes | German premiere
