THE END
Premiere: 28/9/2009, Hafenhalle Linz, Linz
THE END explores what we can imagine that lies beyond the limits of representation. It is a game with theatricality, even a revolt against it. In an impossible attempt it juxtaposes theatrical machinery, reason and judgment with a body and the precision of its madness. It puts to test its own limits only to move us towards our own perimeter and sustain us in the anticipation of the unexpected. THE END is nothing but an exercise in presence, nonsense, paradoxes, mistakes and laughter. Last but not least, it is a topsy-turvy dance, in which the performer and the spectator both take part.
Concept and realization: Mala Kline
Guests: Robert M. Hayden and Jurij Konjar
Sound and music: Emilian Gatsov
Light and space: Lothar Baumagarte
Video: Guillaume Cailleau
Animation script, drawing and direction: Izar Lunaček
Animation execution: Guillaume Callieau in Olivier Durand
Costumes: Svenja Gassen
Technical director: Luka Curk
Executive producer: Tamara Bračič Vidmar
Production: Bunker, Ljubljana
Coproduction: OIsNotAcCompany
Suport: Ministrstvo za kulturo RS, Mestna občina Ljubljana, Maska, Akademija umetnosti Novi Sad, Cultural Association YANVII
With interventions she thwarts the reference points of her own performances, to prevent any coherence judgment. On the other side she questions the form of a theatrical event as a fixed organism, which only as such can be fluid in the process of economic circulation…THE END plays with the procedures of theatrical representation, and in the crucial points it escapes the possible projected meanings. Into rapidly alternating sequences sequence invade sites of presence where the performer steps out of representation and opens the void between the spectators and performers… playing needs to be brought to the two extreme limits, to non-playing and to the absolute representation, best if both at once. It is this theatrical madness, which Mala Kline uses, that liberates theater of its organs and of structuring into an organism, and puts it on Artaudian utopian position of the body without organs. (P.Brezavscek, The End. Konec gledalisca kot organizma, RS)
This game of representation fails, ends even before it is announced, because it is prevented by every specific appearance on stage and its staging. The game of representation would mean presence, a situation in which the white rabbit is only a white rabbit and not a symbol, allegory or a metaphor, a situation that would not require meaning. That, as Kline communicates, is an impossible intent. … (The performer) lies to us and invites us to play unencumbered, she incites the unencumbered madness to make us again see the loaded seriousness of the theater. (A.Snabl, Od konca do Zacetka, DNEVNIK)
…a fictional mystery play … can also be understood as a metaphor for understanding art, among other things, through the embodiment of Joseph Beuys rabbit who “confronts” itself with statements about art as a utopia, and art as a counter against popular culture. (M.Kumerdej, Konec koncev, DELO)