Written by: Nobel Prize Winner Herta Müller
Adapted for stage by: Mihaele Panainte
Translated by: Dr Jozefina Komporaly
Directed by: Natália Gleason-Nagy
Directors Quote: Lowlands is an Eastern-European OUR TOWN set in Ceausescu’s Romania. Panaintes modular dramaturgy releases voices from our collective consciousness and creates a performative space to witness our silences morning fresh and decades old. Lowlands is both a memory play and a surrealist vision animated from a child’s perspective. It is with awe and love that we call on the community to gather around this version of Herta Müller’s text on the 40th anniversary of its first publication. Together with her words we will celebrate the divine resistance that girls carry in their soul the world over for all of us.
10 min Introductory Context Lecture by dramaturg Katie Rey Bogdan
40 min Lowlands Staged Reading
20 minutes Lowlands Lieder
Followed by a Community Conversation facilitated by Patrick Crawley, Ph.D
Anticipated total running time 90 minutes
The staged reading will be followed by contrasting high-art afterlife a child-size concert inspired by the german musical tradition of Lieder as composed by Matthew Brown. We will close with a community conversation about the topics contained in the show: creators and their processes (writing, directing, composing, dramaturgy) , imprints of war and dictatorship, life in rural communities, life as a cultural/ethnic minority, collective memory, the child’s view, adapting/translating contemporary works.
Sponsored by Romanian Cultural Institute NYC