EVER GIVEN

A tipping-point revue

By Helgard Haug mit Musik von Barbara Morgenstern & The Sea Beats

What if everything falters? What if it cannot go any further?
In March 2021, the 400-metre-long and almost 60-metre-wide container ship Ever Given ran aground on an embankment of the Suez Canal in strong winds. It capsized - blocking global freight transport and world trade for six days. More than 400 ships were jammed on both sides of the canal far into the Mediterranean and Red Sea. A central trade route froze. Was the Ever Given, with a dead weight of 220,000 tonnes plus 20,000 containers, simply too heavy? Or too big? Because in terms of length, it can almost match the height of the Empire State Building. Was there too much to be transported too quickly in order to maximise profits?
EVER GIVEN is focusing on collapse. What if a person, an organism, an entire system can no longer continue as before? What if everything that previously seemed self-evident is suddenly disrupted? What happens during a standstill? The protagonists on stage are people who have experienced or sought a radical rupture - were confronted with a message, a stroke of fate, a diagnosis. With a nothing-goes-anymore!

And yet the wheel keeps turning and turning:
The narrative structure of EVER GIVEN is an experiment: This revue is not told with a clear beginning and end, but in a circular way. It is not a line - it is a circle. After a prologue, the piece threads itself into this ‘loop’ and returns to the beginning. The next evening threads itself into the following scene. The following evening into the one that comes after. We simply get on board. Into the merry-go-round. Each evening is threaded anew - at a different point. All sequences must be designed in such a way that they can be repeated in themselves. Everything goes round in circles and after the end it just goes on?

What does it sound like when the world gets out of rhythm, what if the rhythm escalates and loops until the music piles up into a wall of sound and tips over into a new situation?

With: Hana Hazem Arabi, Adham El Said, Michaela Groch-Fischer, LED and Marianne Vlaschits

Concept, text, direction: Helgard Haug
Composition: Barbara Morgenstern
Live music: Barbara Morgenstern, Daniel Eichholz
Live electronics: Peter Breitenbach
Stage design and Costume: Evi Bauer
Video art and Lighting design: Marc Jungreithmeier
Dramaturgy: Maria Nübling, Henning Nass
Research: Maria Nübling
Assistant director: Birgit Allesch
Assistant stage designer: Laura Schroeder
Assistant costume designer: Olivia Lottersberger
Artistic assistance: Lisa Homburger
Intership: Jule Bischoff, Noémi Juniki, Oriana Mucha, Güde Nissen
Production management: Maitén Arns, Eva Luzia Preindl
Touring management: Chloé Ferro
Technical director Rimini Protokoll: Patrick Tucholski
Container ship video-footage: Christoph Schwarz
(„Supercargo“ www.christophschwarz.net/supercargo)
The Sea Beats: Barbara Morgenstern, Daniel Eichholz, Adham Elsaid, Peter Breitenbach

A production of Volkstheater Wien and Rimini Apparat in co-production with HAU Hebbel am Ufer and Theater Magdeburg.
Supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

Performing rights: schaefersphilippen Theater and Medien GbR

Music rights: Barbara Morgenstern © Maobeat Musikverlag/Budde Music Publishing GmbH

We would like to thank the following people for the interesting discussions and information in the course of our research:
Rudi Anschober (former politician, Federal Minister in Austria for Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection, 2020-2021), Svenja Arp (holistic practitioner and osteopath), Ernest Bektasevic (lawyer), Renate Brüser (former Verschickungskind, second chairwoman of the board of the Verschickungskinder e.V. initiative), Florence Burnier (survivor of the Mühl commune), Miriam Carl-Bölük (Diagnose FSHD), Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz (Lawyer, Speaker, Asylkoordination Österreich), Prof. Dr. Mathias Harzhauser (Paleontologist; Head of Department Geology and Paleontology, Natural History Museum Vienna), Nils Haupt (Senior Director Corporate Communications Hapag-Lloyd.), PD Dr. Heide Hoffmann (Deputy Regional Director Berlin of the Network Pituitary and Adrenal Diseases e.V.), Dr. Henning Jessen (World Maritime University, UN Shipping Organization), Dr. Volker Lücke (Lawyer, Partner | Clyde & Co Europe LLP. V.), Dr. Henning Jessen (World Maritime University, UN Maritime Organization), Dr. Volker Lücke (lawyer, partner | Clyde & Co Europe LLP.), Neneh Muhr (social worker, boxer, Feminist Fighters Union), Benjamin Ochel (Caritas Berlin), Nina Pfeiffer (Managing Director of Int. Frachtschiffreisen Pfeiffer GmbH), Univ-Prof. Dr. Gerald Pinter, DI Maria Gferrer (Chair of Materials Science and Testing of Plastics, Montan-Universität Loeben) Jana Polasek and Elmar Goerden (theater directors and couple companions, Founder of Monogamie Deluxe), Prof. Dr. Viola Priesemann (Max-Planck-Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization & Georg-August-University, Department of Physics, Göttingen), Dr. Med. Med. Dimitris Repantis (Consultant Psychiatrist, Co-Lead Psychedelic Substances Research Group, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences), Stephan Schmitz (Coach, Moderator, Management Consultant, Bereavement Speaker, Former Religious Superior of the Sacred Heart of Jesus), Mario Schober (stage manager, wrestling referee/judge), Karl Sieberer (contemporary witness of the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant, electrical engineer), Alexander Till (representative of the Port of Hamburg, Austria), Prof. Dr. Friedhelm von Blankenburg (earth system scientist, Free University, Berlin), Henrik von Maltzahn (online marketing manager; member of the self-help group of the Hypophysis Network), Prof. Dr. Burkhardt Wolf (literature and media scientist, University of Vienna), Thore Würger (psychologist and head of the Berlin Crisis Service South-East), Stefan Zach (Head of Communications EVN/NPP Zwentendorf) and others.