‘The Anarchy of the Theatrical Moment’: A profile of The Pyromantiker

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Notes

¹ Where no director is specified for a production in this article, the work is self-directed by the Pyromantiker.

² Almagor, an actor from Jerusalem, worked on the Kammerensemble's Miss Julie production and on an extended project adapting David Grossman's 1996 novel See Under: Love, which included Hirche's 1996 wordless solo piece Zitrin tanzt (Zitrin Dances). Almagore later founded the Teatron theatre company in Arnsberg.

³ The German title – Froschkönig, or as it translates, The Frog King – is used to differentiate it from the English version of the fairy tale, The Frog Prince. The first English translator of the tale altered the ending. Instead of the frog being kissed and turning into a prince, in the German original the princess throws the frog at a wall in disgust, breaking the spell.

⁴ The English (Knitted Breakfast) and French (Le petit déjeuner tricoté) titles of the piece don't have the same resonances. Rather these titles refer to the unusual props for the piece: every breakfast item – cutlery, crockery, food – is crocheted (by Monika Mitlewski).

⁵ Dassing first created the character of K. H. Schigapow for an earlier Zoshchenko reading in 1997.

⁶ Hirche played Caliban and Alonso and Dassing played Stephano and Gonzalo in The Tempest (2011), directed by Beat Fäh for the Schauburg theatre in Munich, the children's and youth theatre of the German language theatre Munich Kammerspiele (Münchner Kammerspiele).

⁷ The year 2008 brought renewed tensions to the region with the declaration of independence of Kosovo.

⁸ International incidents at the Cairo International Book Fair are not, however, unusual. Controversy has been frequent in recent years due to public demonstrations, censorship and seizing of books. Nor is a fireworks display out of the ordinary: This fair aims to cater to the ordinary Egyptian and attracts them with large outdoor events.