steirischer herbst
Richard Maxwell and The N.Y.C. Players (USA)
The End Of Reality
Tickets
76% Theatre
24% Literature


You are almost relieved when evil suddenly appears in the room. Unexpected and in the persona of a cheap B-movie intruder overpowering all of the uniformed security guards in slow motion, kidnapping one of them and leaving the rest behind nonplussed and badly discouraged. At least you know now that they really do exist: menace, danger, evil! At last, there is a reason for the omnipresence of fear felt in advance!
But before that, we have had a deep look into the heart of a security firm, a place we easily recognise as our Western world: the images of surveillance cameras, people who earn their money with other people's fears and who are full of them themselves. We heard their banal, parroted, aborted conversations, that circle around the invisible lurking enemy, necessary defence measures and survival strategies, but hardly ever deal with feelings and thoughts.
Maxwell, cult director of the New York Off-Off-Broadway, represents minimalist theatre with his New York City Players, using terse dialogues and reduced expression to convey all the more complex subject matter. The banality of American everyday life is the material for his penetrating, intense theatre.
"The End of Reality" is a parable of a frightened society in which the rhetoric and practice of fear and control have long since become part of the private sphere - an unusual, provocative blend of early evening series, action film, social study and politico-cultural essay on the current state of the USA.

"people are smarter than that" (Interview with Richard Mawell in the herbst Magazin)


Co-commissioned by steirischer herbst, BITE:06 Barbican, London & Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University
With support from Doris Duke Charitable Trust, The Walker Art Center,
William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund, The Kitchen;
Judith and Richard Greer, New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency

European première

Thu 28/09, 19.30
Sat 30/09, 21.30
Sun 01/10, 19.30

85'
English language

Talk following the second performance

Theater im Palais
Director / Script
Richard Maxwell

With
Thomas Bradshaw, Makeda Christodoulos, Alex Delinois, James Fletcher, Sibyl Kempson & Brian Mendes

N.Y.C. Players

European première

Thu 28/09, 19.30
Sat 30/09, 21.30
Sun 01/10, 19.30

85'
English language

Talk following the second performance

Theater im Palais

Director / Script
Richard Maxwell

With
Thomas Bradshaw, Makeda Christodoulos, Alex Delinois, James Fletcher, Sibyl Kempson & Brian Mendes

N.Y.C. Players










Richard Maxwell and The N.Y.C. Players (USA)
The End Of Reality
Tickets
76% Theatre
24% Literature


You are almost relieved when evil suddenly appears in the room. Unexpected and in the persona of a cheap B-movie intruder overpowering all of the uniformed security guards in slow motion, kidnapping one of them and leaving the rest behind nonplussed and badly discouraged. At least you know now that they really do exist: menace, danger, evil! At last, there is a reason for the omnipresence of fear felt in advance!
But before that, we have had a deep look into the heart of a security firm, a place we easily recognise as our Western world: the images of surveillance cameras, people who earn their money with other people's fears and who are full of them themselves. We heard their banal, parroted, aborted conversations, that circle around the invisible lurking enemy, necessary defence measures and survival strategies, but hardly ever deal with feelings and thoughts.
Maxwell, cult director of the New York Off-Off-Broadway, represents minimalist theatre with his New York City Players, using terse dialogues and reduced expression to convey all the more complex subject matter. The banality of American everyday life is the material for his penetrating, intense theatre.
"The End of Reality" is a parable of a frightened society in which the rhetoric and practice of fear and control have long since become part of the private sphere - an unusual, provocative blend of early evening series, action film, social study and politico-cultural essay on the current state of the USA.

"people are smarter than that" (Interview with Richard Mawell in the herbst Magazin)


Co-commissioned by steirischer herbst, BITE:06 Barbican, London & Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University
With support from Doris Duke Charitable Trust, The Walker Art Center,
William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund, The Kitchen;
Judith and Richard Greer, New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency

European première

Thu 28/09, 19.30
Sat 30/09, 21.30
Sun 01/10, 19.30

85'
English language

Talk following the second performance

Theater im Palais
Director / Script
Richard Maxwell

With
Thomas Bradshaw, Makeda Christodoulos, Alex Delinois, James Fletcher, Sibyl Kempson & Brian Mendes

N.Y.C. Players

European première

Thu 28/09, 19.30
Sat 30/09, 21.30
Sun 01/10, 19.30

85'
English language

Talk following the second performance

Theater im Palais

Director / Script
Richard Maxwell

With
Thomas Bradshaw, Makeda Christodoulos, Alex Delinois, James Fletcher, Sibyl Kempson & Brian Mendes

N.Y.C. Players