Wiener Festwochen: Heiner Goebbels, David Bennent, Ensemble Modern - Liberté d’action

‘I don’t travel anymore. Travelling – what possible interest could that have for me?’ These are the words with which the painter and poet Henri Michaux began his text Liberté d’action in 1945. Theatre director Heiner Goebbels has chosen this particular title to present his latest piece, which sets Michaux’s words to music. For this staged concert, Goebbels, whose work last featured in Vienna more than ten years ago, is collaborating with Ueli Wiget and Hermann Kretzschmar, the two pianists of the renowned Ensemble Modern. He is interlacing the sounds of prepared pianos with a contrasting and competing voice. Virtuoso actor David Bennent meanders through the poet’s explosive worlds of ideas, sketching images of a mysterious and inhospitable universe and shifting the power of agency and freedom of choice to the mere imagination. Through language, voice, music, and stage setting, Liberté d’action explores notions of autonomy and dependency.

Language: German, some passages in French