RICARDO FRAYHA
producer

In 480 BC the Persians lost the Battle of Salamis to the Greeks, whom they had previously oppressed. Eight years later Aeschylus wrote The Persians, what is now the world’s oldest surviving play. Here is a Greek speaking to other Greeks as if he were a Persian, describing this major battle from the defeated enemy’s point of view. Aeschylus lets those responsible for the fiasco have their say, from the Chorus of Elders to the defeated military commander, King Xerxes.  The playwright examines contemporary history, but from a viewpoint that incorporates both past and future. He shows that the winners of today are the losers of tomorrow. Even when the dead are quickly buried and forgotten, they remain present. “What’s fascinating about old texts like this,” writes dramatist Heiner Müller, “is how little has changed.”  Dimiter Gotscheff synthesizes both Müller’s and Peter Witzmann’s translations of the play in his staging of The Persians, which was voted “Production of the Year 2007” by the critics’ poll in trade journal Theater Heute.

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DIMITER GOTSCHEFF​

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Born in Bulgaria in 1943, Dimiter Gotscheff came to East Berlin at the beginning of the Sixties to study  veterinary medicine. He soon became the student and colleague of Benno Besson at the Deutsches Theater and at the Volksbühne at Rosa Luxemburg Platz in Berlin. In particular his Heiner Müller productions including Philoktet in Sofia in 1983 and Quartett in Cologne in 1985 caused a great sensation. From the mid-Eighties onwards he was active on many German-speaking stages, from Vienna to Hamburg. His productions could regularly be seen at the Berlin Theatertreffen, including his 2006 version of Chekhov’s Ivanov from the Berlin Volksbühne as well as the 2007 production of Molière’s Tartuffe, a co-production of the Salzburg Festspiele and Thalia Theatre. In the same year, Die Perser, which he directed at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, was voted Production of the Year in the annual critics’ vote held by Theaterheute magazine. Dimiter Gotscheff received the Peter Weiss Prize awarded by the City of Bochum. In the 2009/2010 season he premiered his production Ödipus, Tyrann by Sophocles / Hölderlin / Heiner Müller at Thalia. In Antigone, in the translation by Friedrich Hölderin, Dimiter Gotscheff continued his intensive examination of Greek antiquity. His production of Immer noch Sturm by Peter Handke at Thalia, a co-production with the Salzburg Festspielen, was voted Play of the Year 2012 and received the Mülheim Dramatikerpreis. Dimiter Gotscheff died on † 20th October 2013.

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THE PERSIANS

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Text: Aeschylus | Translation: Heiner Müller, over Peter Witzmann and Coral Margit | Direction: Dimiter Gotscheff | Set and costume: Mark Lammert | Dramaturg: Bettina Schültke | Lights: Olaf Freese | Make-up: Andreas Müller | Assistant director: Jakob Fedler | with Margit Bendokat, Almut Zilcher, Samuel Finzi, Wolfram Koch

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Production in Brazil: prod.art.br | Production director: Matthias Pees | Executive production: Ricardo Frayha | Technical direction: Julio Cesarini

 

Realisation: Goethe-Institut, Sesc São Paulo and Festival Internacional de Teatro Porto Alegre em Cena

Sesc Pinheiros

São Paulo, SP, Brazil

29 and 30/08/2008

Festival POA em Cena

Theatro São Pedro

Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

03 and 04/09/2008