no58
ilona.
rosetta.
sue

KAURISMÄKI/DARDENNE/KOLLEK/NÜBLING/SEMPER

Ilona. Rosetta. Sue is a play that brings the actors of NO99 Theatre and the Münchner Kammerspiele and director Sebastian Nübling back together again. Their first joint project Three Kingdoms made waves from London to Vienna, from Munich to Berlin, and from Hamburg to Tallinn. That, by the way, is no exaggeration. The playfulness and energy of this international troupe, their meeting on stage and the temperature of the atmospheres and emotions they created were exceptional even for the most experienced European theatre aficionados.

While Three Kingdoms dove into Europe’s nebulous subconsciousness and the main characters got bogged down in the coarse net of manly fantasies on their heroic odyssey, Ilona. Rosetta. Sue latches onto contemporary people who are left alone in the middle of the everyday world. Three women look for work, yet work is merely a means for finding contact with other human beings. Their quests are fraught with successes and setbacks, pursuits and frustration. Some hold up better to the strain, others break down more easily. These women are not heroic rovers sailing on the sea of life. They are common soldiers on the fringes of society in a banal world whose poetry and sensitivity, however, uphold hope right through to the end.

This play has drawn inspiration from three films: Aki Kaurismäki’s Drifting Clouds, Rosetta by the Dardenne brothers, and Amos Kollek’s Sue. This stage production is a co-production of NO99 Theatre, the Münchner Kammerspiele and KVS (Brussels).

It is currently too early to say any more. Work is only just beginning. Yet even now we are already waiting to see how Pohla and Scharf, Kaljujärv and Puls, Raudsep and Mathata, Vaarik and Krappatsch will meet on stage. Because this in particular is the theme of this stage production and the aim of any kind of cooperation: people meeting people.

Director Sebastian Nübling
Art Director Ene-Liis Semper
Music Designer Lars Wittershagen
Lighting Designer Stephan Mariani

Cast: Mirtel Pohla, Marika Vaarik, Rasmus Kaljujärv, Gert Raudsep (Estonia) and Steven Scharf, Wiebke Puls, Sylvana Krappatsch, Jochen Noch (Germany) and Starlette Mathata (Congo).

World premiere on 28 September at the Salme Cultural Centre in Tallinn.

NB! Theare are being smoked on stage