Gamut Inc RedRum
gamut inc´s music-theater based on Strindberg´s "Röda Rummet"
History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes, Mark Twain is supposed to have said.
At present, these rhymes have a harsh ring to them, reminding us that civilization is built on a bedrock of violence. It is only a thin layer of normality, under which this violence is concealed and breaks through again and again.
In REDRUM, together with the US-American librettist Leslie Dunton-Downer, we are developing a music theater that deals in a multi-layered way with the fragility of seemingly reliable social agreements. In various rooms of the theater in the former silent movie theater Delphi, the audience is entangled in a panopticon of image references in which different time levels and realities are condensed into a poetic resonance space.
Among other things, motifs and characters from August Strindberg's socially critical novel "The Red Room" serve as source material. The novel is a bitter satire on the life of the bohemian classes in 19th century Stockholm, as well as on the stock and art markets that were just emerging. Although the novel dates from 1879, its characters and its critique of the media and the economy seem in part astonishingly current: unstable stock markets, nepotism, and parallel realities and designs of life colliding.
In REDRUM, the two actors Cian McConn and Maike Schmidt take on different characters, become twins, even swap identities in repetitive sequences of an ambiguous narrative. Johnny is home. The electro-acoustic ensemble shapes this evening musically with deep electronic sounds from the underground, fragile harmonic structures of the cello quartet "the octopus" and unstable rhythmic figures of percussion, string instruments, electric guitar and trombone.
According to Hegel and Marx, history repeats itself after all - one time as tragedy, the other time as farce. Forever and ever and ever - REDRUM spins a maze of the uncanny out of these repetitions - a meditation on the weight of history on the present.
We offer this film in two edited versions. The first version, 65:04 mins in length, features longer shots and frequent long shots, while the second slightly longer version of 69.48 mins favors closer shots and faster cuts.
Cast / Casting:
Concept, composition, stage, projections:
Marion Wörle and Maciej Sledziecki (gamut inc).
Libretto: Leslie Dunton Downer
Consulting director: Thomas Fiedler
Actor: Cian McConn
Actress: Maike Schmidt
percussion & bulbs: Michael Vorfeld
Trombone: Hilary Jeffery
Electric guitar: Maciej Sledziecki
electronics: Marion Wörle
the octopus cello quartet
cello: Elisabeth Coudoux
cello: Nora Krahl
cello: Nathan Bontrager
cello: Hugues Vincent
sound direction: Robert Nacken
other roles:
Twins: Fernanda Parente and Brina Stinehelfer
Bartender: Adrian Brun
Erwin Palkowski: Piotr Mordel
Preamble/Exhibition:
Michael Vorfeld and gamut inc
Costumes: Cian McConn
Lighting Berlin: Reinhard Hubert
Lighting Cologne:Johannes Kordes
Technical direction: Florian Mönks
Press/Berlin: Sarah Rosenau
Press/Cologne: Vera Firmbach
Photos: Christoph Voy
Graphic design/collages: Marion Wörle
Documentation: inpetto filmproduktion/Uli Aumüller
Researcher: Sophia Stern
Production: satelita Musikverlag
Cast & Crew
- Director
- Uli Aumüller
- Screenwriter
- Leslie Duntonx Downer
- Editor (Cut)
- Sebastian Rausch
- Original Score
- Marion Wörle, Maciej Sledziecki