Barbara Frischmuth: EINE LIEBE IN ERZURUM - A love in Erzurum (World premiere)

EINE LIEBE IN ERZURUM (UA) http://www.literaturhaus.at/buch/buch/rez/frischmuth01/bio.html, conceived and directed by Irmi Horn. Performance: Anna Maria Gruber, Dagmar Stehring, Michael A. Richter / Design and props assistent: Claudia Cegers / Lighting & Sounds: Kosta and Florian Zankl (Literaturhaus Graz).

An intended long distance call to an old flame recalls a bitter-sweet story of love made impossible by culturally determined incompatibilities and differences between West and East, Europe and Turkey. Despite good cooperation on the scientific and economic level there seems to be no way of understanding each other emotionally. Yet the attempt to come to terms with the memories of a relationship doomed to fail leads to new insights. The bitter-sweet taste of a love lost can start the creative process opening ways of understanding and improving human relations in a globalized multicultural world.
Among other things, Barabara Frischmuth has drawn on results of her studies and experiences of her own in writing this text: once more, she proves to be a mediator between mid-European and oriental culture.

Apart from many other prizes and distinctions, Barabara Frischmuth (Austria) was awarded the main prize (Ehrenpreis) of the Austrian Book Trade, for Tolerance in Thought and Action.

We should like to thank Gerhard Melzer (Literaturhaus Graz), Annette Beaufays (Art for Art Vienna) and Matthias Fontheim (Schauspielhaus Graz) for their cooperative support.

A review in KLEINE ZEITUNG (Graz) dated Saturday September 17th, 2005:Design and props-assistent

Passionate Love

at the Threshold

between East and West

Frischmuth ´s  Erzurum  as a daring piece of theatre

Graz. When broadcast as a radio play, A Love in Erzurum was very well received in Germany, and had a more than ordinary response. No wonder, as this is the story of Antonia, an Austrian exchange student, who - in the east Anatolian city of Erzurum - meets the love of her life: Sinasis, a military physician, who is a number of years older than she is. In the now distant year 1960, the year of the Turkish putsch, a long time before  guest workers  came to Germany and Austria; a long time before asylum seekers ´ hostels burned, and well before the founding of the European Union. Prior to the Graz premiere, even Frischmuth did not know if her piece was fit for the theatre.

Well, Irmi Horn aka Anna Maria Gruber - who is a great friend of Frischmuth ´s - has transposed  Erzurum  from  Turkish Siberia  into the clear light of our attention and the warmth of our emotions. Gruber shapes the play, mixing off-dialogues and close contact with the audience, in a sincere and topical way; she is aided and abetted by Michael A. Richter (the Turkish lover) and Dagmar Stehring (who plays Antonia in her student days). A really successful dramatisation: and as the saying goes, nothing succeeds like success!                  EWS

All theate rights with the firm of HARTMANN & STAUFFACHER, Cologne, for stage, film, radio and TV productions. Text published by kitab Verlag, Klagenfurt, 2002.