Christoph Marthaler | Theater Basel | Switzerland


My Fair Lady variation with tongue twisters and a lot of singing
In the course of a day, human beings utter an average of 16,000 words. Many of them are unintelligible or unclear. Speech therapists and language laboratories promise remediation. In the musical My Fair Lady, Professor Henry Higgins also worked with great zeal and speech exercises to make a fine lady out of the flower girl Eliza Doolittle. In Meine faire Dame, Christoph Marthaler brings speech “drill” to a head in his continuation of this very musical. Seven actresses and actors use the tips of their tongues to demonstrate what they can get up to with word and voice while Frankenstein sits at the piano and keeps watch over the patients. How much perfection of speech is still human? Does the jerky exhalation of air induced by the raising and lowering of the diaphragm necessarily signify laughter and joy? The language laboratory, washed in beige and vested with the charm of the seventies, was created by the celebrated stage designer Anna Viebrock. Here the performers revel in trendy ballads and a-capella songs, comedic, door-slamming dramaturgy included. Unmistakably funny. In the last twenty years, his unconventional theatre language has made Swiss theatre-maker Christoph Marthaler one of the most distinguished directors in Europe and a permanent guest at the Berliner Theatertreffen.

www.theater-basel.ch

With Tora Augestad, Karl-Heinz Brandt, Carina Braunschmidt, Mihaí Grigoriu, Graham F. Valentine, Michael von der Heide, Nikola Weisse Director Christoph Marthaler Set Anna Viebrock Costumes Sarah Schittek Musical direction Bendix Dethleffsen Keyboard instruments Bendix Dethleffsen, Mihaí Grigoriu Lighting HeidVoegelinLights Video Raphael Zehnder Sound Beat Frei, David Huggel Dramaturgy Malte Ubenauf, Julie Paucker Produced by Theater Basel
Supported by Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council