BACKSTAGE EXPERIENCES Chen Nan
A German theater company has started its China tour with a wordless play. reports
About 15 years ago, the German theater company Familie Floez was touring Italy. And one day, while its members were sitting in a theater, a new show was born.
“There were the theater technicians preparing for a kind of anniversary celebration for the local firefighters. We sat in the darkness and nobody could see us. We watched the staff setting up the scenery, the sound and everything, and someone brought flowers in,” says Hajo Schueler, the co-founder and artistic director of Familie Flöz.
The members then put together all their experiences about the backstage and devised the 80-minute play, Teatro Delusio, which premiered in Berlin in 2004.
So far, the show has been staged over 500 times.
The company began its China tour on Thursday through Dec 24 and will perform Teatro Delusio in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, Xi’an, Shaanxi province, and in Beijing besides other places.
In 2016, the company toured seven Chinese cities for the first time with their production, Hotel Paradiso, which is about a small family-run hotel in the Alps.
In Teatro Delusio, the company features a family of three theater technicians. The family comprises the young and unpredictable Bob; the bossy and tired Bernd and Ivan, who is always hungry and anxious about not losing control.
With masks — beige, oversized and with vast noses — the three actors actually bring more than 20 characters to life onstage in the show, including ballerinas, an opera singer and an entire orchestra.
The British weekly newspaper, The Stage, writing about Teatro Delusio, which was presented at the Edinburgh Festival in 2016, says: “It is revelatory and thrilling in its sense of discovery, and its wide appeal, free from the constraints of language, is bound to please audiences much further afield.”
Speaking about the play, Schueler says: “Our play wants to say something about the nature of playing, or acting, or theater.
“The word ‘illusion’ from the Latin world, ludere, which means ‘to play’. We create illusions when we play, and this is what happens in theater.
“They (the backstage) are in touch with the stars of the scene, but they remain hidden in the dark. What we do is to put them in the spot: their dreams, hopes and fears become visible — and like in every comedy, they fail.
“Magically, the glamorous world connects and is blended with the down-to-earth life backstage.”
Like the company’s other productions, Teatro Delusio is one without words.
Describing it, Gianni Bettucci, one of the producers and directors of the company, says: “It’s funny, it’s poetic and thanks to the magic of the masks, both the actors and audience have a unique theater experience. That’s why we’ve been working on this for over 20 years.”
Bettucci adds that the actors certainly have a special relationship with the masks, a view echoed by actor Matteo Fantoni, who says: “It is a feeling of serving the mask. When you put it on, you look at yourself, and the character appears through you and the mask.”
Familie Floez, which combines acting, dancing, miming, clowning and masks, has its origins at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, the only public education facility for physical theater in Germany.
It started in 1994 with a group of acting and mime students, including Schueler, who with experimented theater with masks.
In 1996, their first production, titled Familie Floez Kommt ueber Tage, which paid homage to the working class culture of Germany’s industrial zone, the Ruhrgebiet, was well received, and led to the company touring internationally.
In 2001, the company made its debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, one of the world’s largest arts festival, with its second production titled Ristorante Immortale.
The group later named itself Floez Production, which became Familie Floez.
Its successful debut at the Edinburgh festival then led the company to tour Europe, Asia and Australia.
Over the past 21 years, the company has toured 34 countries with five productions.