Wunschkonzert

It’s the evening. A woman is alone in her flat. But we are watching her make so much as the smallest hand movement. Dinner, watching TV, cleaning the flat, fortune-telling: the rituals of a seemingly inconsequential daily routine.
In Yana Ross’ widely-travelled production of Request Concert, the prize-winning Polish actress Danuta Stenka, who became internationally-renowned with her role in the Oscar-nominated war film Katyn, stays silent for 80 minutes. An open stage, visible to the audience from all sides, intensifies her presence. She lives there, so close that the audience can read the magazines she opens over her shoulder. Her world is laid out according to a geometric plan and completely hermetic – but anyone who wanted to touch her would have to do no more than reach out their hand. Together with the audience, she creates a space of quiet, vibrating concentration, which is filled with simple actions that gradually take on comical and absurd dimensions.