UNDER ICE

u n d e r i c e

according to Falk Richter

Premiere 2016 September 11th,12th, OKT/Vilnius city theater

Duration 85 min | audience 16+

director/ scenographer : Artūras Areima
costume designer : Monika Gurskytė
music : Artūras Bumšteinas, Dominykas Morkūnas
video designer : Kornelijus Jaroševičius
actors : Rokas Petrauskas, Dovydas Stončius, Tomas Rinkūnas

Photographers Mantas Puida, Elodie Le Gall

Play translated from German by Jūratė Pieslytė

Supported by Lithuania Council for Culture

In Under Ice the center of the world is a conference hall. There is no love here, only productivity. The protagonist Paulius N is a business consultant under constant pressure. The expectations of family and colleagues are making P. Nobody feel trapped. P. Nothing’s life with a workplace in its centre and with the decaying of the self is gradually unraveled. The protagonist is forced to always be efficient and always adapt.

Falk Richter is one of the most important German writers of his own time. In Europe, his oeuvre is renowned and highly appreciated. In his plays he analyses the physical and mental states of an individual along with the general situation of politics in the West. Richter’s topics are the discussion of the elite of economic world and their ways of thinking and acting along with what impact it has. Richter is concerned with the ideologies of efficiency and economical growth and what effect it has for the lives of common people. Richter’s texts are thought through and are acting both as reality and cinema, politics and poetry. When composing the play the playwright used around 100 hours of documented video material of business consultants at work.

Artūras Areima: “People’s of the western culture performance in the workplace is excellent yet when they are exposed to an unplanned everyday situation they can easily be frustrated. People’s minds are narrowing and they are becoming more mechanical. People forget the simple,human things in life. Their life is ruled by their profession. Some of them want to change something yet are afraid to lose everything. Because today if you’re not rich or prospective you’re nothing. Blinded by work and career people forget what their childhood dreams were. People make lists and plans and do what they’re supposed to do. This is how they get lost in their own world and that is when they’re trying to re-evaluate everything. I wonder, when that happens, is there still hope for a person to change his life?”

AWARDS : 2016 international Edinburgh Festival Fringe, „Jawbone“ award, Falk Richter UNDER ICE

2022 international alternative theater festival FIAT, special jury award for for the impressive combination of contemporary dramaturgy and new theater forms, Falk Richter UNDER ICE

REVIEWS :

http://www.broadwaybaby.com/shows/under-ice/716935

http://postcardsgods.blogspot.lt/2016/08/under-ice-summerhall-edinburgh.html

http://kultura.lrytas.lt/scena/arturo-areimos-spektaklis-po-ledu-isteriska-logika.htm?utm_source=lrExtraLinks&utm_campaign=Copy&utm_medium=Copy

http://www.bernardinai.lt/straipsnis/2015-09-18-keista-cia-po-ledu/135185

http://www.teatrai.lt/naujienos/straipsniai/2016/09/didziausio-pasaulyje-menu-festivalio-specialusis-prizas-teatro-rezisieriui-a-areimai

https://lebruitduoff.com/2018/07/24/under-ice-satire-punk-deglinguee/

https://sceneweb.fr/under-ice-de-falk-ritcher-arturas-areima/

http://www.montheatre.qc.ca/espace/avignon-jour-5-encore-encore/

http://www.menufaktura.lt/?m=3391&s=68378

http://www.menufaktura.lt/?m=3391&s=68382

http://www.bernardinai.lt/straipsnis/2015-09-18-keista-cia-po-ledu/135185