Die Räuber: Schiller thriller
Die Räuber tells the story of two brothers, one good, one evil, and the titular band of robbers. Although it was written in 1781, it’s a timeless story and certainly one that I, along with the whole cast have enjoyed planning and rehearsing and are looking forward to performing.
After the initial auditions, role allocation and script-learning, all of our focus is currently on rehearsing and fine-tuning the play as we prepare for our performances on the 18 and 23 of March. Each rehearsal typically starts with a series of innovative and somewhat bizarre drama games to test improvisation skills and get everyone ready. Whichever scenes we’re rehearsing that day are meticulously performed, reviewed, reworked and performed again until everyone’s happy with how the scene plays out.
We’re not just following our (beautifully edited) scripts blindly; thanks to the imaginations of our directors, an amazing workshop organised by Susanne Heuer and Sandra Beer and an inspiring trip to watch Joan of Arc at the New Diorama Theatre, we’ll also be utilising lighting, body movement and music to supplement Schiller’s language.
Everyone who’s volunteered to be a part of the cast, no matter their skill level, has thrown themselves into this project with a real enthusiasm that never ceases to amaze and is really committed to their performances and the group as a whole. They’re the ones that’ll be on the stage, and their performances every week leave me with no doubt whatsoever that the play will be a success.
It’s not just the cast who have helped bring the play to life - our production team and costume designers have outdone themselves too, making sure every aspect of the play’s production is outstanding. In addition, we’ve had the special talents of Philippe Morozov on our side, who helped organise and run a recording session in which the play’s publicity and many of the play’s video and audio effects were put together. In short, everyone working on Die Räuber is grateful to each and every one of our talented volunteers for helping us to put on the play.
Special thanks have to go to the three members of our directing team: Aysha Strachan, Flora Demaegdt and Alex Ternisien. Aysha had the less-than-enviable task of editing Schiller’s original, 4-hour long script and transforming it into a play a group of am-dram students could feasibly perform, while bringing the best out of what is a brilliant story. We think she’s succeeded in this and all the cast are thankful for the work she’s done to make the play clear to understand and enjoyable to perform. The transformation Flora and Alex were tasked with was no less daunting: turning a bunch of students, many of whom have little or no acting experience and some of whom don’t currently study German, into an acting troupe capable of doing justice to Schiller’s work. Miraculously, thanks to the enormous amount of work they put in, their vision of how they want the play to look and feel has been the guiding force we’ve needed to translate words in a script onto the stage itself.
We’re now heading towards the first performance of the play on the 18 March, confident in the strength of our cast and thankful to the production team who have worked their socks off to enable this play to be the best it can be. The experience of working on Die Räuber is one I know I’ll treasure and I’d like to thank everyone involved for making that experience one to remember. All that’s left for us to do is actually perform the play, and I know our cast is going absolutely rock it. Es lebe der Hauptmann!