Director's Notes • Press Reaction

Director's Notes:
Franz X. Kroetz is one of a handful of German dramatists who began to impact world theatre in the 1970's. Among his peers in this "new wave" of German language theatre were Peter Handke, Rainer Fassbinder, and Martin Sperr. The writers were linked not only by their language and their shared political concerns, but also by their desire to free the stage from it's use as a source of debilitating illusion, "by breaking through the dominant theatrical conventions."

One of Kroetz's prime targets was theatrical language. "I wanted to break through an unrealistic convention: garrulity. The most important action of my characters I their silence, and this is because their speech doesn't function properly. Their problems lie so far back and are so advanced that they are no longer able to express them in words." What has emerged, as Richard Gilman says in an introduction to Kroetz's work, is "a drama built on silences; a theatre of the inarticulate." Their language, composed of clichés, aphorisms, proverbs, and repeated banalities, gives a sense of not coming from them, but of passing through them, recycled from the environment that surrounds them. The language does not offer the traditional linking of word and action, nor do their words offer a means of processing experience. Kroetz's genius is in presenting "naked, immediate, and unestheticized gesture and image," in an extraordinarily compact structure. The bluntness of his writing, the implacable speed of the performance, and the characters that he has drawn from the "invisible" in our society make for an evening of tough, relentless theatre.

Finally, Kroetz cares about his characters. He says "My pieces are oriented on very Christian conceptions: they appeal primarily to empathy, to love among people, to insight, to understanding; they are touching, they offer no solutions.

Wendy Knox, Artistic Director

Press Reaction:
"Frank Theatre has made a most impressive debut with the area premiere of Franz Xaver Kroetz's FARMYARD, a stark rural drama which relies on deeds and silence rather than words to make its considerable dramatic impact. Director Wendy Knox does an exceptional job of bringing this difficult piece to life. Her excellent cast includes Sean Devitt, Phyllis Wright, Bernadette Sullivan, and Paul Smith."

Peter Vaughan, Critics Choice

"Franz Xavier Kroetz's rubbing-your-nose-in-the-dirt style of realism carried to the extreme takes some getting used to. Frank Theatre's premier production perfectly illustrated Kroetz's harsh and discomforting aesthetic."

Robert Collins, Best of the Arts