New Plays from Italy, Vol. 2: Three Plays

(Paperback)

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We decided to go because we dont want to be a burden to you

After reading Petros Markariss novel Termination, we found the perfect source for our work. The Greek writer opens the first chapter with the image of four retired housewives who voluntarily commit suicide leaving a simple, powerful message: "We realized that we are a weight to the state, doctors, pharmacists and society. So we decided well be off, to spare you further worry. You'll save our four pensions and youll live better". The play opens in this suburban apartment where the women have just taken their sleeping pills. A reflection on suicide not as an existential act, but as an extreme political act. Is there an altruistic suicide We looked for similar gestures in History. The one of Jan Palach, who during the Pragues Spring in1969, set himself on fire as an act of protest against censorship, and that of the buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc, who in 1963 similarly did the same gesture to combat the persecution of his religion in Vietnam.

We decided to go because we don't want to be a burden to you was originated with Monica Piseddu and Valentino Villa, and opened at Roma Europa Festival 2013. It won the 2014 Ubu Award for Dramaturgical Research. Three of their texts have been collected in the book, "The invisible Trilogy" (Titivillus 2014).

The Healer

The healer is a man who connects stories to people, to cure them. He is tired and old and drinks grappa. Healing is not an easy matter, it takes need carelessness, liberation and separation. He is neither a magician nor a doctor, but merely an obscure compromise.

The Neighbors

He is alone in the apartment. He hears some footsteps coming from the landing. Trying not to make a sound, he looks through the spyhole. He tells Greta when she comes home that he saw the neighbors. How were they He cannot tell, seeing is not understanding, but he is scared. Why Who knows What about Greta No, Greta is not afraid of the neighbors. She cant wait to meet them. But shes afraid of the Old Lady. Which old lady The Old Lady she sees at night, the one who used to live in the building. This is a play about our fears, real and imagined, about ourselves and the other, about neighbors near and far, about war.

Author Bio

Dr. Frank Hentschker holds a Ph.D. in Theatre from the Theatre Institute in Giessen, Germany and joined the Faculty of the Ph.D. Program in Theatre at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, in 2009.

Dr. Hentschker currently serves as Executive Director and Director of Programs at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (MESTC), an institute for theatre based at the CUNY Graduate Center. In this capacity, since 2001 Dr. Hentschker has transformed the MESTC into a premier forum for public programming in international and U.S. theatre and theatre studies. He founded the acclaimed annual festival PRELUDE-at the forefront of contemporary nyc theatre, which features twenty New York-based theatre companies and playwrights at the Center each fall. He also started the PEN World Voices Playwrights Series, in partnership with the PEN America Center's PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, and led 19 CUNY performing arts centers in the formation of the CUNY C-PAC Performing Arts Consortium, producing its first joint festival in 2009.Each year, Dr. Hentschker curates and produces approximately 40 events for the Segal Center, featuring lecture-demonstrations, symposia, works-in-progress and conversations with theatre scholars, theatrical luminaries and emerging voices in the international and local theatre scene.

Before coming to the Segal Center, Dr. Hentschker served as a producer, consultant and actor in the U.S. and Europe. He founded and was Artistic Director and Financial Administrator of DISCURS, the largest European student theater festival existing today; served as Robert Wilson's personal assistant and tour manager for his production of Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights at Berlin's Hebbel Theatre, and appeared as Hamlet in Heiner Mller's own production of his play Hamletmaschine, among many other roles. Dr. Hentschker served as President of the Board of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art from 2005- 2009, and edited the book Jan Fabre: I Am A Mistake, Seven Works for the Theatre (MESTC Publications, 2009).