Videoclip - faust in the box /english version

A Collage of the edited play with popular music of different generations, performed as
one-woman-show with handpuppets

directed by: Bridge Markland / Heike Gäßler

After the big success of the German original this is - faust in the box - the English version.
In a spectacular show as a one-woman-performance with hand puppets and pop music
Bridge Markland  conjures “Faust“ out of the box.
She performs high speed changes between Mephisto, Faust and Margaret while using hand puppets as her opponents.
Bridge Markland acts with intense physicality lip-syncing to the brilliant soundcollage of the voices of the various protagonists, plus compelling music.

Well known quotations from this most renowned of German dramas are juxtaposed  in English with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Rammstein, Robbie Williams, Metallica, Pink, Elvis, Madonna, Led Zeppelin, Depeche Mode, Placebo and many other music artists.
The classic play finds its contemporary equivalent in the sounds and lyrics of modern music and thus is opened up for many different generations.
This “Faust“ interpretation is not a parody, but a modern method of dealing with a classic. At the same time it demonstrates parallels between different streams of popular culture.
Audiences are amazed at how much the lyrics of a popsong have in common with a classic play. The central themes which occupy human beings remain the same. The piece carries the audiences to laughter and to tears as the storyline unfolds before them with humour, emotion, great sensibility and much grotesqueness.
Bridge Markland  performs “Faust“ in and out of a cardboard box. A simple, but very effective stage prop which changes it’s meaning according to the scene.

This „Faust“ interpretation delights audiences from 15 – 90 years of age and was praised at performances in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Oregon, Michigan, Kentucky, Mannheim, Karlsruhe and Berlin.



Pressvoices:

" ...The parallels between the well known text and it’s translation into pop songs of the past four decades are impressive and funny at the same time. Bridge Markland walks on the rather narrow edge between modern debate and persiflage.
When Margaret recognises at the end that she is on AC/DCs "Highway to hell", this borderline finally becomes blurred in a great and new attempt to interpret the classic for many generations. This comprehensive attempt was successful.“
Bernd Mand, Mannheimer Morgen, 7 May 08


”...Bridge Markland brings out the piece’s many levels. For her, as for Goethe, it’s about love and suffering, God and the devil. A simple parody which did nothing but ridicule could never be as enthralling and entertaining as this performance in a cardboard box.”
Oliver Kranz, Corso, Deutschlandfunk, 20 March 08


"... it works so well I became fascinated to see and hear just what was about to happen next.
... It is superbly performed and very very cleverly written and designed...."
4 stars
www.one4review.co.uk, 17 August 2009       


audience comment:

"...Bridge Markland is a brilliant performance artist whose work often intentionally blends and blurs the lines between perceived gender roles and stereotypes. ...
I admired how she was so unafraid, so unabashed to be who she was, what she saw the human soul as, pushed the boundaries of what people were trained to see as male and female. ...
The fluidity I think is what caught me the most. Markland is a master of many faces and switches between them without the slightest hitch, playing first a disheartened scholar, then a mischievous devil, then a sweet naive girl. My mind was pulled into a show and if I noticed that Gretchen was now a human, and suddenly now again a puppet, my mind was too busy watching to let me dwell upon it. Not only the fluidity between the characters but also the genders was inspiring to see. Her costume, hair and facepaint gave no indication or nod to either side but instead lay reminiscent of kabuki theater ...
Her performance and subsequent research into her person and character inspired me to question myself and my own being, to attempt to break away from all the “shoulds” in my life. She’s taken all these years of art and experience and assimilated them into various styles and shades of performance to push our mental boundaries and question who honestly has the right to tell us who we should be.”
Kait Nurrenberg, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, USA, November 2011

Performances:

faust in the box / english version

Germany:
- English Theatre Berlin, 2008, 2009, 2010               
- "Here & Now 2.0 A Theatre Festival", TIG7, Mannheim, 2008
- Berufsakademie Mannheim, 2008

USA:
- University of Michigan Residential College, Ann Arbor / Michigan, 2009
- Goethe Institut Chicago / Illinois, 2009
- Kranzberg Arts Center, presented by German Culture Centre St. Louis / Missouri, 2009
- Murray State University, Murray / Kentucky, 2009
- Aloha High School, Aloha / Oregon, 2011
- Scripps College, Claremont / California, 2011
- Goethe Institut San Francisco / California, 2011
- University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2011
- Agnes Scott College, Decatur / Georgia, 2011
- Kutztown University / Pennsylvania, 2011
- University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, 2011

UK:
- Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2009


faust in the box / german

Germany:
- Saalbau Neukölln, Berlin, 2006, 2007, 2008
- 100° Festival Berlin 2007
- 15. International festival of puppetry / Figurentheaterfestival, Nuremberg, 2007
- Theaterherbst Greiz, Thüringen, 2008                                       
- Penguin's Days (children and young peoples theatre festival), Moers, 2009
- LesArt Literature Festival, Dortmund, 2009
- Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, 2010
- High Schools in Berlin

Austria:
- Kulturlabor Stromboli, Hall in Tirol, 2010

USA:
- University to Minnesota / Minneapolis, 2007
- Saint John’s University / Minnesota, 2007
- Goethe Institut Chicago / Illinois, 2009
- Kranzberg Arts Center, presented by German Culture Centre St. Louis / Missouri, 2009
- German School of the East Bay, Oakland / California, 2011
- German American School of Palo Alto / California, 2011
- Goethe Institut San Francisco, 2011