Four walls and a roof
Performance Social/Urban Movements Theatre & Performance
Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué take their audience back to the year 1947. Bertolt Brecht has been summoned to answer to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that was set up to fight communist machinations. Brecht has specifically drafted a declaration for this occasion, which he is ultimately not allowed to read out. Using Brecht songs, historic material and witty humour, the timeless question for the freedom and liberty of the arts is posed. Yet Majdalanie and Mroué – who both share Brecht’s exiled experience since their emigration from Beirut to Berlin – shy away from any preconceived notions. The piece premiered at the Festival D’Automne in Paris in 2024.
cast
Text, Direction: Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué (with excerpts from Bertolt Brecht)
Performance: Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué, Henrik Kairies
Songs: Hanns Eisler mit Texten von Bertolt Brecht
Additional Composition, Musiker: Henrik Kairies
Dramaturgy: Sandra Noeth
Light designer and Technical Direction: Thomas Köppel
Rabih Mroué (*1967, Beirut, Lebanon) is a Berlin-based artist, actor and director who combines visual art, performance, and theatre. In the interplay between reality and fiction, Mroué utilises documents, video material, photography and objects to scrutinise the authority of archived written testimony.
Lina Majdalanie, born in Beirut (Lebanon), works as an actor, director, and author. In her works, Majdalanie quests for forms of political language in times of globalisation and digital technology.
credits
Supported by Kunststiftung NRW as well as through the Alliance of International Production Houses by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Production: Rabih Mroué and Lina Majdalanie, Festival D’Automne (Paris). Coproduction: CENTQUATRE-PARIS, FFT Düsseldorf, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Performing Exiles/Berliner Festspiele, Kampnagel Hamburg, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, (Brussels), Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt a. M.), Residenz Schauspiel Leipzig.
Foto of Bertolt Brecht: Elisabeth Hauptmann
Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Bertolt-Brecht-Archiv, Fotoarchiv 1/86
Thanks to:
Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Brecht Archives: Julia Hartung
Suhrkamp Theaterverlag: Yvonne Büdenhölzer
L’Arche, L’Agence Théâtrale: Amandine Bergé
CENTQUATRE-PARIS – Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt -
Franscesca Corona, Joana Hadjithomas, Ariane Jeßulat, Khalil Joreige, Urs Koerner von Gustorf, Matthias Lilienthal, Nikolaus Müller-Scholl, Ludmila Pogodina, Walid Raad, Ivan Txaparro, Anna Wagner, Maximilian Zahn, Andrei Zavalei