with Tarren Johnson, Ixchel Mendoza Hernández, Dominic Santia, Kate Strong and Diamanda La Berge Dramm (live music)

Susanne Kennedy is one of the most singular artists to have emerged on the European scene in the last few years. Inspired by the vulnerability that we have collectively been experiencing for the past three years, she created, with the multimedia artist Markus Self, a zoom on a woman’s life. What makes Angela Angela? We follow her through the most banal situations of human existence: waking up and sleeping, being born and giving birth, growing old and dying. Suddenly, she becomes sick. Do Angela’s mysterious symptoms transform her, or do they only change the way she sees herself? Angela is made up of millions of experiences, some of which have been told to her by others. Her perceptions create connections between social situations and digital worlds. What if she was nothing else but a "weird loop," an endless sequence that reactivated itself? At a time when bodies, machines, and technology connect to each other, what are existence, identity, and conscience becoming? Kennedy and Self turn ANGELA [a strange loop] into a case study on what it means to be human today.

Cast

stage design Markus Selg
sound design, editing Richard Alexander
soundtrack Richard Alexander, Diamanda La Berge Dramm
video Rodrik Biersteker, Markus Selg
costumes Andra Dumitrascu
dramaturgy Helena Eckert
lighting Rainer Casper
director's assistant Friederike Kötter
assistant to the scenographer Lili Süper
costume assistants Anastasia Pilepchuk, Anna Jannicke
artistic production manager Philip Decker
technical production manager Sven Nichterlein
international cast Rui Silveira - Something Great
tour manager Niki Fischer - Something Great

production Ultraworld Productions

production management Something Great

coproduction Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, Festival d'Automne à Paris, Festival d'Avignon, Holland Festival, Wiener Festwochen, Festival Romaeuropa, National Theatre Drama - Prague Crossroads Festival, Teatro Nacional de São João, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz

with the support of the Ammodo Foundation, the German Federal Cultural Foundation

with funding from the Commission for Culture and Media of the German Federal Government

in co-production with the Festival d'Automne à Paris

creation in May 2023

Biographies

Susanne Kennedy, born in 1977, is one of the most unique voices in European theatre. Her plays are a radical invitation to play with reality. She explores the blurred line between actor and machine. In her theatre work, the performers wear masks and speak with pre-recorded voices. The stable representation of reality is constantly challenged by changes in perception and hypnotic images. She studied theatre in Germany and France. In 2005 she graduated in directing in Amsterdam. Together with the visual artist Markus Selg, she designs spaces that resemble virtual corridors in video games or colourful psychedelic hallucinations.


Markus Selg is a multidisciplinary artist. His stage installations combine video, sculpture, architecture and performance in immersive spaces. Since 2015, he has worked closely with director Susanne Kennedy, including for Coming Society and Ultraworld 2019/2020 at the Volksbühne in Berlin. For Ultraworld, he received the Faust Award 2020 for best stage design. In 2020, their creation I AM (VR), a virtual reality experience, premiered at Theater Commons in Tokyo. In 2022, they staged Philip Glass' opera Einstein on the Beach, which will be presented in 2023 in Paris as part of the Festival d'Automne.