Let me tell you something peeps, it kills
me (figuratively, naturally) to promote anything where the performing dates are
close to the performance dates of a production I am involved in. I cannot bear
it that the public might have to choose between what I am doing and what
someone else is doing. Furthermore, I am not altogether sure that my ego can
cope with the (obviously) imagined slight if my show is not chosen as the
"must see" production. But in this case I think that you will just
have to blow your cash and time budgets and do both. More on what I am doing in
a couple of days.....
In the meantime for those of you that
want to experience something a little different, want to be seduced by a warm
deep voice, experience the creative merging of music and drama this will be a
wonderful piece of theatre for you.
Nina Hein, theater director,
choreographer and video artist, whose past projects include Dubai Drama Groups
production of God Of Carnage and work with the "Angry Bairds” on Eat Dubai
(a fascinating take on supper theater held in January at the Sheikh Mohammed
Centre for Cultural Understanding) has the creative street credibility that
make us very lucky to have her in our midst. In the melting pot of cultures
that is Dubai Nina is a creative powerhouse that you should all experience
while you are lucky enough to live here.
Nina is directing Odekhiren ( Ode) Amaize
who's bass-baritone voice will melodiously seduce you in any performance he
undertakes. You will melt into his voice. Ode is another of the wonderfully
multi-talented expats, that finds themselves on this spit of sand, with so much
to give a theater loving community.
The theater going public in Dubai are
happy to fork out for very high priced tickets to international acts and sit
almost in the rafters where they have to watch screens to be able to see the
performers on the stage. It beggars belief. What Dubai audiences should be doing
is sitting in the intimacy of a small theater and have an emotional rapport
with the performers. Don't let this be one of those occasions where you lose
out. Get your ticket now. Experience our locally based talents in full creative
flow.
I caught up with
Nina and asked if she would answer a couple of questions about the show:
Zimboinlimbo: Who approached who with the idea? How did the two of you come to
the decision to work together and why on this piece?
Nina Hein: I've seen the original production with Nikolaus Paryla at
Münchener Volkstheater (Munich, Germany). It was part of the repertory and
Paryla played the role for 30 years. I saw the production many, many years ago;
I think I was studying theatre at university, or perhaps when I was still in
school? I always liked the play, and I remembered it better than any other
shows I saw (and I've seen many!). When chatting with Ode about 4 years ago, I
mentioned it to him. I don't remember why exactly. But the spark passed to him.
Zimboinlimbo: Have you worked together before?
Nina Hein: This is our second piece together, we worked on A. Pushkin's
“Mozart and Salieri”,which was performed at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi in
March of 2010. Then I moved, and we kind of lost contact. We met again and Ode
was telling me that he had started to play the double bass and that he is
memorizing the text of the play. So finally, a few years down the line, we are
doing the show!
Zimboinlimbo: What particular skills did the two of you bring to the production?
Nina Hein: We both have musical training. Ode's is much greater than mine, as
he studied voice at conservatories for many years. What I have enjoyed, a lot,
in preparing for this production is that we can discuss music, and composers,
and that's something I haven't done in a long time!
Zimboinlimbo: What inspired the design of the poster?
Nina Hein: AUD students designed posters based on the play text and Ode's
vision of the play. The best or most appropriate one was chosen because we
liked the presence of the double bass and the shadow, smaller in scale, of the
musician.
Have I wet
your appetite? I do hope so. See below for booking details
I have lifted the following straight off The Courtyard Playhouse wedsite so you may have read the following there.
The Double Bass
by Patrick Süskind
English Translation: Michael Hofmann
Sat. 21st March 2015
Performed by Ode Amaize
Directed by Nina Hein
Set Design by Margo Tummel
Directed by Nina Hein
Set Design by Margo Tummel
Written in 1980 by Patrick Süskind (author of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer), The Double Bass was premiered in 1981 in Munich, Germany. It has been translated into several languages and performed in leading theatres and festivals.
“What no composer has yet composed has, at last, been written by Patrick Süskind: as satisfying, fully-fledged solo piece for a double-bass player. Normally, as the speaker in this poignant dramatic monologue reminds us, the double basses are assimilated, concealed in the orchestra. There are no solo parts, at best the odd duet. But the musician who makes his life in the lowest reaches of the string section is also a human being: a creature prey to frustration and jealousy, a person whose devotion to art goes sadly unrecognised, a man capable of the most elevated feelings towards a beautiful soprano soloist. Scored both as a social comedy and a lament to the essential unfairness of life, The Double Bass restores a grain of justice to a too long-ignored area of artistic endeavor, allowing one double-bass player at least to perform in these pages with marvelous sprezzatura”. — ©1987 Michael Hofmann ©1984 Diogenes Verlag Ag.
This production is directed by Nina Hein. It is produced and performed by Odekhiren Amaize (Ode) and accompanied by a good amount of incidental music of Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, Schubert, Dittersdorf, Bruckner, etc.
March 20 & 21 8:00pm-10:00pm
Courtyard Playhouse, Dubai
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