L. DANYLCHUK / B. EHLERS-KERBEKIAN / D. FROT / A. ZADECKA / D. SARAFEIDOU

5 women say no

---

Monday, November 14 | 6 p.m. | Die Pumpe

---

Sprache: Ukrainian, German, French, Polish, Greek
Duration time: ca. 70 Min.

---

It has never happened before at Thespis: the organizers asked five actresses, all of them previously performing at Kiel festival, to create mini monodramas on a very current theme: women who say “no”. The result is five completely different short pieces, which we are very excited to see premiered this year.

Ukrainian actress, Lidiya Danylchuk, has chosen the poignant and poetic monologue CLYTEMNESTRA by her celebrated compatriot, writer, poet, and essayist Oksana Sabushko, in which the mythical title character resolutely rebels against King Agamemnon.

German-Armenian actress BEA EHLERS-KERBEKIAN took her contribution from contemporary German history. From the “uncensored speeches of incensed women” that the author Christine Brückner collected in her famous book DESDEMONA-IF YOU HAD ONLY SPOKEN, Ehlers-Kerbekian chose NO MONUMENT TO GUDRUN ENSSLIN. SPEECH AGAINST THE WALLS OF THE STAMMHEIMER CELL. It is the RAF terrorist’s furious prison monologue on the last day of her life. (With thanks for the support to Bettina Schinko)

French theater and film actress Dominique Frot, who opened the last Thespis festival, has based her contribution A NO FROM MANON IS A NO FROM OTHERS AS WELL! on texts by the contemporary author Manon Delatre (France) and the spoken-word artist Kae Tempest (Great Britain).

The multifaceted Polish actress and puppeteer, ANNA ZADĘCKA chose for her FELICIA an excerpt from THE TRAP, drama based on the life of Franz Kafka by her compatriot Tadeusz Rozewicz. As she herself says, FELICIA “rebels against getting stuck in toxic relationships, taking responsibility for the whole world, blaming oneself for things that are beyond one’s control. I want to talk about freedom, especially the need for a woman’s freedom. I am against self sacrifice in relationships.”

Greek theatre and film actress, DESPINA SARAFEIDOU presents CASSANDRA’S MONOLOGUE from „TROJAN WOMEN by Eurypides. A bride or a suicide bomber? After her country lost the war, the virgin prophet is forced to marry the enemy’s militant leader. Her wedding ode is a wail of despair, an anti-war cry, and rebellion against the arrogance and excessive pride of the strong. Like a Trojan horse, Cassandra will punish the hubris of the powerful and bring about their destruction.

---