| Architektin | State Theatre Company of South Australia |
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The extraordinary life of the remarkable Margrete Schutte Lihotsky is brought to the stage in Architektin, a world premiere production presented by a strongly South Australian team, written by one of our State’s greatest and best-loved artists, Robyn Archer, and directed by State Theatre Company Artistic Director Adam Cook.
Margrete, born in Vienna in the heat of artistic revolution, and post World War 1 social concern, decides to study architecture. She becomes Vienna's first female architect, and works in the studios of greats like Adolf Loos and Ernst May.
“Her thinking was driven by a concern for women in a society trying to rebuild after war. With so many men killed, women would have to work as well as look after the kids, and she believed women could be assisted through better kindergartens and more ergonomic conditions in the house, thus reducing the burdens of housework,” said Robyn Archer, Architektin writer. “A moment’s darkness should not make us blind.”
At the turn of the 20th century, Vienna was the epicentre of innovation and the crucible of the European avant-garde in the fields of art, literature, music, psychiatry, philosophy and theatre. The city was an extraordinary laboratory simmering with the ideas of pioneers like Freud, Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Adolf Loos, Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, Karl Kraus, Schnitzler and Wittgenstein.
Margrete Schutte Lihotsky has a passion to design and build, but the political change brought about by the rise of Hitler treads heavily on her ambitions and her struggle to keep on building demands supreme courage and conviction.
“In the end, when you open up a life as wild and wonderful as Margrete’s to a large group of people who have never heard of her before, you hope that it will generate an interest not only amongst theatre-goers but amongst architects, designers, historians and all those who are inspired by the lessons biography teaches us,” said Robyn Archer.
Architektin (a title that comes from the German word for a female architect) is more than just the story of a young woman who became an architect. Love, passion, espionage, imprisonment, and a long life thereafter, all lie at the heart of Margrete’s tale.
State Theatre Company of South Australia presents
Architektin
By Robyn Archer
Starring Craig Behenna, Antje Guenther, Michael Habib, Ksenja Logos, Helen Morse, Nick Pelomis
Director Adam Cook
Designer Mary Moore
Lighting Designer Geoff Cobham
Venue Dunstan Playhouse
Dates 29 August - 20 September
Bookings Bass bass.net.au
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