claudia bosse / theatercombinat

starting with questions about violence in society, its importance for change, its standardisation and enclosure following the documentary of jürgen bartsch (a german serial killer), michel foucault’s material to «psychiatry and criminal justice, the case rivière» and «les nourritures affectives» by boris cyrulnik, the author sylviane dupuis decides, unlike originally planned, not to write a theatre–play about the case bartsch, but to create a play «dealing with a young woman of our times, murdering her parents – invented and without link to a historical case», stating that «theatre is a place where the criminal act can become a metaphor» (sylviane dupuis).

the play is an experimental disposition for a «phantasie social» under the conditions of theatre: speech – body – space - constellation. the plot was developed by claudia bosse in collaboration with the swiss author.

world premiere, théâtre du grütli, geneva; project time: march - june 1996, presentations: 28.5. - 9.6.1996

ich, maude oder la malvivante (german version)
direction: claudia bosse, performance: barbara baker, armand deladoëy, dominika duchnik, christian maria goebel, ronnie marzillier, heike müller, silke rosenthal, angelika sautter, documentation, collaboration and performance: christine standfest

parochialkirche/podewil berlin, festspielhaus hellerau dresden; project time: august - october 1997, presentations: 13.9. - 22.9.1997 (berlin), 1.10. - 2.10.1997 (dresden)

partners: association genèveberlin, théâtre du grütli, pro helvetia, lotterie romande (ch); podewil berlin, pro helvetia, fond darstellender kunst, festspielhaus hellerau (d)

writing project, because the text has been created and developped specially for this work, and didn’t even exist completely at the beginning of the rehearsing process. «la malvivante» originates in the interest of both writer sylviane dupuis and director claudia bosse to develop models of contemporary theatre which open up, question; which are made to confront both makers and spectators with social transformations and/or ruptures. the space is a 250 m² theatre-studio, marked by color, used as one common space for actors and spectators.

during rehearsals and in presence of the author the text is disputed and developed further related to the different performance-context. the original french-swiss cast is combined with performers from berlin, provoking different questions and new debates.

in german language, the impetus of the text changes. the final syllabels close the sentences – in contrast to the french ductus. in attempting to speak against this linguistic structure, the power of convention exposes itself as physical effect. the different locations – the parochial-church in berlin-mitte, the festspielhaus dresden-hellerau - understood as expansions of the urban space, become material of the staging. their architecture, history, acoustic, noises are concrete parts of the work, changing with every change of location.

at the beginning of the work at the grütli-theatre in march 1996, there is no complete text. the texts comes into being centred around a theme and in relation to the actors and dancers. partly, the text is written during the rehearsing-process.

in 1997 a german version of «la malvivante» is created, translated by sabine günther. in a second working-period, «ich, maude oder la malvivante» is produced and first performed in berlin (podewil) and dresden (festspielhaus hellerau), with a german-suisse cast.