Theatre performance Woyzeck directed by Martin Kušej, performed by Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel, programmed in Holland Festival 2009.
The Austrian stage director Martin Kušej, who established his reputation in the Netherlands with Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (2006) and Die Gezeichneten by Franz Schreker (2007) at De Nederlandse Opera, places Woyzeck in an apocalyptic, unforgiving world. Fragments from Büchner’s unfinished 1837 stage play serve as scraps of memories of a weak-willed heroine addict. Little by little, Woyzeck’s ruthless world turns him into a murderer. While his grandmother tells the most terrible fairy tale imaginable – the story of the loss of hope – Woyzeck gradually sinks into a social mire, culminating in the murder of Marie, the mother of his son.