Goodbye!

Well, that's it. After almost 80 days and 80 nights on our Occident-Express, we feel As If we haven't slept for the last two months (which is partly not that false); we spent Seven wonderful days in Zagreb and are just happy that we didn't end up like the Titanik Orkestra.

Sunday, we had the last performance on the Orientexpress. For the last time, the train entered the harbour of Stuttgart, the lights dimmed, Fatih opened the hydraulic stage, the train whistled and the German ensemble started their performance.

After the show, we had one of these unforgettable parties in the dining car, with Turkish music, Raki and Slivovic. Now, the train's on the way home again; what is left are good memories, a slightly expanded phone bill - and about a hundert hours of filmmaterial. Our documentary film will be ready by the end of this year and broadcastet on the German tv channel "Theaterkanal". For further information about our film, You may subscribe to our newsletter. (And don't worry: we won't spread Your email-adress or sell it to anybody)

So, that's the last blog. For two months we made this blog, with a movie clip every day, which was a very interesting (and pretty exhausting) experience to us filmmakers, as we normally don't work on a daily basis.

Now, we just want to do two things: sleep and say thank You. Dear technicians, actors, crew-members, organizers: Tesekkür ederim, Multumesc, Hvala and Danke to everybody who was on the Orient Express, we will never forget You. See You!

everything has to come to an end..

... the "Orient Theatre Express" also.

Last night we celebrated the last performance of the german ensemble "80 days 80 nights" on the Orient-Theatre-Express". The audience was more than happy and wanted to party the whole night long.

Today we will post last impressions of the final night and the departure of the train. We also want to offer you a possibilitie to register and receive a regular newsletter what is happening with the film. So please come back later and have a look.

For now we have to go one last time to Stuttgart Harbour and say good bye when the train is leaving in direction of Turkey.

Tiger wants to say something...

It's the second last day, and honestly, that feels a bit strange to us. We spent more than two months on the Orient-Theatre-Train which became very familiar to us. As You probably have noticed, we're pretty keen of the two stuffed animals of the German play. Here You will see, probably for the last time, a short interview with Tiger, sitting at the harbour of Stuttgart.

A slow interview

Sometimes we like to ask difficult questions... Sitting on the roof of the Orientexpress, Slovenian actor Primoz Pirnat explains, what theatre means to him.

Postdramatic

Postdramatic, that's how they call this style of theatre, at least, that's what a German dramaturgic advisor told us. In a pretty well-known internet encyclopaedia it's described as: „Postdramatic theatre is not primarily focused on the drama in itself, but evolves a performative aesthetic in which the text of the drama is put in a special relation to the material situation of the performance and the stage. Thus postdramatic theatre is more striving to produce an effect amongst the spectators than to remain true to the text.“

The play „Occident-express“ extends the scope of regular theatre playing: props and make-up are right on the stage itself, while the actors are primarily playing themselves.

The play was sold out, the audience at the harbour of Stuttgart enjoyed it a lot; the applause was long and warm. Luckily, the weather was good as well. The only thing bothering our minds is the forecast for the weekend: they announced hail and very low temperatures. So we hope (as usual) that the forecast might be wrong...

The secrets of the set design

The story of a human being. Not a specific human being, it's the story of human beings in general, the development of a woman and a man, from early childhood to older ages.

The serbian play "Kao Da" ("As If") is probably the most general of the orientexpress festival. The play has no particular setting, the plot could happen wherever; many dialogues are held in a fantasy language which for everybody is as difficult or easy to understand and, last but not least, the topic itself is very general. They tell the story of a woman and a man from early childhood to older ages, they meet, fall in love and split up again, they love and hate each other.
Which setup could be suitable for this play? Vesna, the serbian set designer, constructed a wooden box as a symbol for an uterus...

Performances: 17th and 18th of July, at the harbour of Stuttgart.

"Titanic orchestra"

Waiting and waiting. Waiting for something to happen, for a better life - or at least for a train. A group of clochards on a railway station, that is out of order, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes a train passes the station, raising the hope of the clochards, but it won't stop. That's how life is going on until one day a magician steps into their life...
That's in short the setting of the Slovenian play "Titanic orchestra" which will be performed on July ...
Today, the stage wagon finally got officially repared, which means that it can travel all the way back to Turkey.

The play will be performed on july 17th at the harbour of Stuttgart.

Occident Express

In two days, the Romanian play "Occident express" will be performed at the harbour of Stuttgart, so we wanted to show You a short extract of the performance in Craiova, Rumania.

The play is about a group of Rumanian actors - the actors actually play actors, which makes the play a bit redundant, but in a very interesting way - who shall play a "typical rumanian" scene: in this case a gipsy wedding. They are simply not in the mood of fulfilling the chliché-based ideas of the french director and they refuse to play the scene till the end. The director leaves the set and the actors start improvising some scenes about their own view of their country. They talk about corruption, the Ceaucescu regime, neocapitalism and unfulfilled dreams and hopes of the Orient-Express, which was one of the only links of the country to the west during the dictatorship.

Performances on thursday 7:30 pm and saturday 9:30 p.m.

Teddy and Tiger's favourite scene

Sunday (July 12) and Monday (July 13), the German play will be performed again at the harbour of Stuttgart, so wanted to show you another extract of the interview with Teddy and Tiger, the two stuffed animals. We asked them about their favourite scene of the play.

the last performance of "Ex-Press"

Nine weeks ago the performance "Ex-Press" of the türkish national theatre Ankara opened the Orient-Theatre-Express and again this ensembles is the 1st one to have its closing night.

A last time we show the turkish ensemble onboard the train entering the fully booked theatre area in Stuttgart Harbor. Once again the stage opens and for sure it is not just for the directors Mustafa und Övül Avkıran but also for their ensemble, the only ones having been on the train for all of the trip, a miracle moment. At the end we see Mustafa and Övül standing up and cheering in tune with the thrilled audience - it`s a bit like saying goodbye to the "Orient Theater Express".

Just two hours later also the ensemble of the Zagreb youth theatre with their play "Seven days in Zagreb" had an emotional last night on the festival.

To be or not to be... an actor.

The crew of the Croation play "Seven days in Zagreb" will spend three days in Stuttgart, performing for a german audience. We met Franjo, one of the actors, and asked him a very basic but important question: Why is he an actor? Here's his answer.

"Political-poetic" storytelling

"Political-poetic", that's how a german journalist described their style. Övül und Mustafa Avkiran, the directors of the turkish play, talk about politics in a very poetic way. They combine music, traditional story telling and acting to an artistic performance, which was a way of avoiding the censorship during the military government of the 1980s.

"Ex-Press" will be performed on Fiday, 10 July, and on Saturday, 11th July, at the harbour of Stuttgart.

Press Conference

Shortly before the start of the Orient-Theatre-Express-Festival in Stuttgart the main organizers meet the media to talk about the project. The Press Conference was attended by: Carsten Strähle (Geschäftsführer Hafen Stuttgart GmbH), Hasko Weber (Intendant Schauspiel Stuttgart / Staatstheater Stuttgart), Jean-Claude Berutti (Präsident der European Theatre Convention (ETC)), K.Lemi Bilgin (Generaldirektor der Türkischen Staatstheater), Torsten Maß (Leiter Allgemeine Projektförderung, Kulturstiftung des Bundes), Christian Holtzhauer (Projektleiter Orient-Express, Schauspiel Stuttgart), Övül & Mustafa Avkiran (Regie Ex-Press)

After the press conference Jean-Claude Berutti talks to us about the ETC and his expreriences with the Orient-Theatre-Express.

From Thursday, July 09, the festival will start at Stuttgart Harbor. Everybody is more than welcome and there are still tickets left.

Wheels are slightly damaged

As we already wrote in this Blog, there are some severe problems with the theatre wagon. Actually, the wheels are slightly damaged - hardly visible to any normal person - but severe enough to loose any right of traveling. At least in Germany. The problem's now that it's not even allowed to pull the wagon 10 km to the reparation center as it lost it's international licence and without the latter, any traveling on official railway tracks is strictly forbidden.
Yes, in this case we are confronted with an interesting side of bureaucracy: You're obliged to undertake a reperation but not allowed to bring the wagon to a reperation center.

In the end, it's not that complicated. Yesterday, two metalworkers of German Railways prepared the wheels provisorically. Now it should be at least permitted to drive short distances at very low speed.

The German Rabbit

Yesterday, the German play had it's first performance in Germany, and everybody was curious about the audience, as the reactions in Turkey were not the most enthusiastic one could imagine. Was it because of the language or is the sense of humour just different in Turkey?
To make it short: the opening was a big success, the audience in Freiburg enjoyed the play very much.
We filmmakers have seen the play over and over again, and still don't get enough of it. Here's our favourite scene: an illegal immigrant at the German boarder.

A new place to play

Yesterday was a great night of performances with no rain at all. No matter what the rain forecast had been looking like.

Today the German ensemble is back on the "Orient-Express-Theatre-Train". It is great to meet up in Freiburg again. The Germans prepare for their 1st performance in Germany and have a look into the new improvised theatre wagon, as the original one is still standing in Stuttgart and waiting to be repaired. The Germans also look forward to perfom "80 days and 80 nights" in the "Depot", one of the venues of Schauspiel Stuttgart, after the festival itself is over.

Rain or no Rain

Seventy, that's the number of the day; 70 percent could be the probability of rain, whatever that means. It's nearly 7 p.m., and there was no rain the whole day, which of course is pretty nice, but still we're a bit suspicious. Will it stay like this for the whole evening? To rain or not to rain, that's the question nobody dares to ask.

It's hot and humid and one could ask himself, whether the risk of rain isn't rising from hour to hour as long as it doesn't rain, just in order to fulfill any statistical rules.

Will we live a Midsummer nights dream, are we waiting for Godot, rain or sun; could this be the Endgame or are we missing Mother Courage?

We simply don't know but hope that meteorolgists might be wrong sometimes and that clouds don't care about any statistics.

Where is all that water coming from?

On the road again! After a one weeks break in Stuttgart, the train traveled to Freiburg - a small town in southern Germany. Well, just to be precise, only half of the train could be moved, as the train technicians reported a "severe problems" on the wheels of the stage wagon. The latter is simply not allowed to travel unless the damage will be repaired.

So, a new stage has to be found; the solution will be to play in the second fraight wagon, which until now has been used for transport purposes only. Furthermore, they will set up an additional stage on the railway station of Freiburg, just to imitate the extended stage surface of the theatre wagon with it's own platform. There is no guarantee, whether everything will work out fine, but as our technicians are really good in what they do, so we're pretty optimistic.

In the meantime another problem occured: the weather. Today there were some really heavy rainfalls over Freiburg, and even if the forecast for tomorrow is not that bad, many people still have some doubts.

In the meantime, the "Orient Express Theatre Festival" is being prepared in Stuttgart. Between the 9th and the 19th of July all theatre groups of the project will meet in Stuttgart and have a couple of performances. We're looking forward to meet all the ensembles once again.

Fast Forward

Today we will show you a film-experiment. As we wanted to offer you impressions of one performance in full length we decided to speed up the show of the Croatian ensemble "7 Days in Zagreb" in a two-minute long film.

If you want to see the performances in full length you can still join the "Orient-Theatre-Train-Festival" on one its shows in Freiburg oder Stuttgart. For more information please visit Staatstheater-Stuttgart

Behind the Stage

What is happening behind the stage?

This is one of the questions many people in the audinece might have on this trip. So we want to give you an exclusive view behind the stage and you can see the actors of the German play "80days 80 nights" getting ready for their performance in Craiova.

The Titanic Orchestra

Today you will see again a small excerpt from one of the participating plays. In this case the slovenian contribution of the Slovenian National Theatre Novi Sad "The Titanic Orchestra".

Let yourself be attracted by this funny and exciting play. More of this you can see at the performances of "Orient Express Theatre Train" in Freiburg on July 04 and 05 or in the Stuttgart Harbor from July 09 on.

Arrival Stuttgart Harbor

Fatih is having a look outside of the waggon into the night to see where the train is heading and what is around.

Around 05 o`clock in the morning. The sun is already coming up and the train has just arrived from Slovenia. It has to be switched to its final destination for the next week, before the "Orient Theatre Train" leaves for the performances in Freiburg.

Technical Delays on the Theatre Train

Today we want to show and explain you a bit why the "Orient-Express-Theatre-Train" has such a long delay on the border between Slovenia and Austria, so that it arrived more than 8 hours later to Stuttgart than expected and so that we were not able to produce a new film the other day.

During the last weeks of travel from Turkey to the border to Austria the train has been using its generator-waggon to produce its own electricity. This electricity is also needed for operating all security features of the waggons during a train ride. For Austria and Germany this generator-waggon was not allowed to be used due to the possibility of magnetic interferences with the local electric train management systems. So the Austrian railway operator sent a special lokomotive with a special power supply to give enough electricity to the Turkish waggons to be properly opperated.

But as always something went wrong and nobody was able to get this power connection properly running. Without power the train was not allowed to carry on passengers so that it was decided to get hold of another Austrian passenger waggon to be put in between the lokomotive and the Turkish waggons.

After many hours of waiting time the train finally left with all passengers in the extra waggon and made its way in direction of Stuttgart, where it arrived around 3am in the morning. This you will be able to watch in another weblog in the next days...

"Orkester Titanik"

The slovenian ensemble had their premiere on the very last evening in Nova Gorica. "Orkester Titanik" by Hristo Bojcev tells the story of a group of clochards living in a closed railway station and hoping for a better life to come - or at least a train to Kopenhagen, Rejkjavik, St. Petersberg or Los Angeles.

Train Travel Break

Dear friends of our weblog.

As the "Orient-Theatre-Train" was making its way from Nova Gorica to Stuttgart yesterday and experienced some more than 8 hours of delay due to technical issues, we are not able to show you a film today, but we will upload some new pictures. Have a look...

It`s raining

The weather is really bad here, so we waited till four pm for it rain to stop. Unfortunately it did not, so the whole technics and stage sets were brought to the theatre of Novi Sad. In the end there were only three hours left to built up the whole set, for the theatre starting in time.

1st Slowenian rehearsal

For the 1st time the Slowenian ensemble has the chance to rehearse on the stage of the "Orient-Theatre-Train"; they have to see how props could fit into this unique stage.

All day long the sky has been gray. Finally when the rehearsal was about to start it began to rain. For Wednesday everybody hopes for better weather as the stage should open for the premiere night of "The Titanic Orchestra"...

Steam Engine

Today`s weblog might be a bit nostalgic. Weeks ago we showed you a scene where Mustafa our Turkish train Chief painted a steam engine while waiting for the "Orient Express Theatre Train" to move on. Now he finally found one in Nova Gorica. A wonderfull steam engine still in use and in great shape. We just had to follow him on this journey to ancient train history.

Might this lokomotive have been running in front of the historical Orient-Express?

water refill

It's two o'clock in the night. We stopped at Ljubljana's central station in order to refill the water tanks. Slovenian railway staff put the tubes, Fatih offers cigarettes, while Cengiz takes some pictures.

They are the real heroes of the "Orient-Express-Theatre-Train": this project just wouldn't be possible without the enormous effort of the Turkish and local traincrews.

Bordercontroll

Departure in Zagreb. The border controll wants to stamp our passports. With patience we go through this procedure and say goodbye to this gentleman. We are looking forward to our next station on our journary: Ljubljana.

last minutes before the show

The one and only performance of the Turkish Ensemble in Croatia.

Shortly before the play we have visited the actors in their dressing room. They are tuning their instruments and getting ready for the performance, not to forget the best wishes for their piece. Fathih has a look through the curtain onto the empty dark stage to be ready to right in time press the button that opens the Stage to the audience.

Rumanian performance in Novi Sad

We're leaving Zagreb today, which is a pitty, we really liked it here and met some wonderful people.

In our blog we want to show you some extracts of the Rumanian performance in Novi Sad, around a week ago. Two hours before the performance should start, the organizers decided to move the spectacle to Novi Sad state theatre, as they announced heavy rainfalls. It was amazing, how quick the whole setup was transferred so that the performance could start just right in time.

80 days 80 nights extract

Due to massive problems with internet availability, we are sorry to announce that we ar not able to present the actual video. We show you another excerpt of "80 days 80 nights" instead. You might also have a look on our updated Photo-Section.

Zagreb - "Little Vienna"

We're exploring the city of Zagreb, which some may call "Little Vienna".

For us it's the biggest city we've seen since Bukarest, and in the beginning, this was a bit strange to us, but now we got used to it and like the city and its people very much.

Tonight, the turkish ensemble will arrive to Zagreb; they spent a week off in Turkey, but will continue their journey on the Orient Express to Lublijana, Nova Gorica, Freiburg and finally Stuttgart.

Tiger&Teddy 2

Here's another part of the interview we had two weeks ago with Teddy and Tiger, the two stuffed animals of the german play. We asked them about the other actors, and as you can see, their answer was not the most diplomatic one. Sorry. Dear actors, you won't take that too seriously, will you?

Stage-Fright

It's the opening night of the Croatian play in Zagreb, called "Seven days in Zagreb". Everybody's nervous as several rehearsals had to be cancelled due to the rain. Tijana, the director, tells us right before the play how she feels.

"throwing boxes"

It’s about two weeks ago that the German ensemble left the Orientexpress, and to be honest, we do miss them. Hello out there, are you fine?

In today’s blog we wanted to show you some extracts of their play “80 days, 80 nights”, which could be slightly inspired by Jules Verne. It’s the odyssey of two stuffed animals across eastern Europe. They get sewed, sold, disdained, banished, used as drug runners and exposed in a galery – meanwhile they’re only looking for somebody who really likes them.

Artificial Language

What language could be suitable to express common and general feelings and behaviours?

The serbish ensemble decided to come up with an own invented language which they use in the beginning of their play. This might sound strange, but it's an interesting experience to see, how these words make you "understand" the play.

painting train conductor

He is not just our train conductor, but also a brilliant painter. Every time the train has to wait somewhere, he gets out of the lokomotive and starts painting it.

What a beautyfull motive...

Serbian Rehearsal

Finally, we arrived well in Zagreb, with a delay at the border of only about two hours, which is extremely quick compared to the other borders, where we usually spent five or even more hours. You may ask why it might take such a long time to check a train crossing the border. Well, the reason is pretty simple: All the theatre equipment has to be checked by the customs and this takes time.

What is more, nobody seems to be in a hurry. However, the traincrew and all members of the orientexpress never lost their temper, everybody's (mostly) in a good mood, but perhaps a bit tired. Actually, today we got up at four a'clock, as the train left Novi Sad at five. The reason for that nobody really knows, perhaps there's a rule that special trains get special schedule.

Today's weblog film isn't up-to-date at all, but we still had some nice material of the rehearsal of the serbian play "As if" which we filmed at the small stage of Novi Sad state theatre. We're fascinated by the simple but very precise play, the strong actors and the nice stage design.

Novi Sad

Just before we leave Novi Sad in Serbia, we would like to introduce you to this charmful city at the banks of the Danube. With its 300.000 inhabitants it's just big enough to offer an interesting cultural life, without being too big and crowdy. We spent some wonderful days here and will be back one day for sure (without any camera...)

Actually, the music you hear is turkish and not serbish, but we thought that it fits quite well to the pictures.

Croatian Rehearsal

The Croatian ensemble had their opening night last Saturday in NoviSad, and by the time you read this, they already left again; we will meet them next week in their home town Zagreb.

Rehearsal time for their play was short, there were only a few rehearsals on the train. The final rehearsal was late in the night as they had to wait for an actor who played on the same evening at Novi Sad theatre festival.

The setting of the play Seven days in Zagreb is pretty simple: five persons in the waiting room of a railway station, each of them with his own story and life dreams which turn out to be illusions.

Theaterlabyrinth

German tour manager David is about to meet with Bane, the serbian festival organizer. Bane shows him around in the theatre, a typical building of the early 80s with this typical orange color and grided ceiling linings. It seems to be very popular, performances on the three stages are often sold out. With a staff of about 800 people, Novi Sad state theatre is the largest of its kind in former Jugoslavia.

Border to Serbia

In the same way as before on the border between Turkey and Bulgaria the Orient-Theatre-Express-Train had to wait for hours. Everybody enjoys the time as good as possible while the customs officer are checking train and passengers.

In this tranquillity and loneliness you can just think about this trip and our way from Orient to Occident. Somehow life seems to have a different pace we hardly can get away from. What might be happening on the next station?

Turkish play: "Ex-Press"

Today we show the last minutes of the Turkish play "Ex-Press". Regular viewers of our weblog will recognise that we had one film before showing a rehearsal of the Turkish ensemble practising this song.

After some rainy days in NoviSad the sky has finally cleared and yesterday we followed a wonderfull night rehearsal of the Croatian play with shining moon over the stage. We will show you some pictures of these magic moments soon.

Joerg Bochow

In loose order we also want to give a general view of the people behind the Orient-Express-Theatre-Train-Project. Today the head of dramaturgy and vice artistic director of the Schauspiel Stuttgart, Dr. Joerg Bochow, talks about the start of this project.

text rehearsal

Shortly before the performance the german ensemble talks through their text. Looks like this makes fun.

By now the Orient-Theatre-Train has reached Novi Sad, a fascinating city we want to show you in the next weblogs...

Train Traveling Novi Sad

While the German theatre crew is on their way back to Stuttgart the Orient-Express-Theatre-Train is traveling in direction of Novi Sad.

A new city, new theatres and other stories are awaiting us there...

Different Sense of Humor

After three weeks on the Orient-Express, it is time for the Germans to say goodbye.

Just before there last performance in Rumania, two german actors share their experiences in playing for a foreign audience. It seems that Turkish and Rumanian audiences have a different sense of humor.

Talk with Teddy and Tiger

Teddy and Tiger, animated by Hannes and Oscar, talk about the German piece "80 days / 80 night". Apparently, the two puppets are in a pretty good mood...

preparation of props

Unhurriedly Friederike is preparing the props. Amongst other things the tub Tiger an Teddy will be washed in after they have been rescued from the rubbish bin and pieced up again.

Preview: tomorrow we will show an exclusive interview with Teddy and Tiger...

the challenge of International Theatre

Christian Tschirner, the German director of the play “80 days 80 nights” is talking about his view on international theatre. He sees a huge challenge for such projects and especially for theatreplays to be internationally understandable and playable. For him the factor of regional understanding and clear messages is a limiting factor. Only dance theatre can cross this line because it mostly is vaguer and can be artistically interpreted by the audience. Being a foreign director Christian Tschirner is talking about his lack of knowledge of the countries audience. He does not want to claim himself knowing how for example the Turkish visitors enjoy a theatre play.

While the train is taking its way from Bucarest to Craiova we can easily sit down and think about Christian Tschirner`s thoughts. Surely we are not the only ones asking ourselves how each audience is reacting and feeling about the different plays…

Occident Express

Sitting in front of Ceauşescu's former private Railway station, director Alexandru explains the Romanian play, which talks about the dictatorial past of the Ceauşescu-regime. Apparantly, everybody dreamt of leaving the country in the Orient Express to western europe. Hence the term "Occident express" is much more suitable for the Romanians.

New city – new experiences …

The hotel fort he turkish and the german ensemble had not enough rooms available for everybody. So the filmcrew has been booked into the Intercontinental. The 18th floor allows a wonderful first view over the city.

Micul Paris, small Paris that is how Bucarest was named many years ago. Today this city accommodates around two million people slowly recovering from the legacy of Nicolai Ceausescu.

An easy discussion

Finally, the train arrived in Bucarest, Romania, with a delay of only three hours. In the meantime, another problem occured: apparently for the theatre performances some of the railway cars have to be switched in position, an easy task to be discussed in three languages...

First Borderline – first problems

About 270km away from Istanbul on the borderline to Bulgaria the Orient-Express-Theatre-Train is standing right on the border train station, Kapikule. There seem to be some heavy activity and high level talks going on so that we assume that there might be something not going according to the plan. A few minutes later we know about it, the train`s departure has been delayed for unknown time. Having this uncertainty in mind everybody looks for something to do to make the time passing even faster. How much Türk Cay will be served, we do not know, but for some reason the locals “lay back”-way of life seems to also work for us quite well and totally relaxed we are waiting for some news.

If and if so with how much delay and with how much of the freight the train will start his trip in direction of Germany is impossible to tell right now, but tomorrow we will know much more …

“80 days – 80 night” – Christian Tschirner talks about his play

Christian Tschirner, the german director, gives an insight into the story of his play "80 days - 80 nights", which actually takes place along the original route of the ancient orient express.

In "80 Days - 80 Nights" the well-known German outhors' collective SoerenVoima tells the story of a teddy bear arid his companion, a stuffed tiger, both made in Romania for the German market. Unmasked as plagiarisms, they are denied entry into Germany and destined for the shredder. But the good fairy Seyran rescues the two and, on the condition that within 80 days and 80 nights they find someone to love them, sends them on a hazardous journey along the route of the old Orient Express.

Sunset in Istanbul

Evening by evening Istanbul is showing an astonishing natural spectacle as soon as the sun sets in the brightest and most beautiful colours we can imagine, just as it happens right now in front of us with the sun going down behind Hagia Sophia. A golden yellow with red lines mixed coloured spectacle not being comparable with anything else.

Simply the ferry boats will be taking a rest. But who ever might be missing the last boat should not be sad. In one of the unnumbered bars, restaurants, clubs and whatever one might need for entertainment one space will be open. One space in a city never calming down.

Sadly we have to start saying goodbye to this city most of us came a kind of in love with. A city having warmly welcomed us not really showing a borderline between Orient and Okzident. But we have to schedule the last hours and days before it will sound on Monday: “Bucarest we are coming”.

Train crossing Bosphorus

The Bosphorus has to be crossed, from the eastern to the western part of Istanbul, from Asia to Europe. There's no bridge for trains but ferry boats. The crossing is scheduled for the night after the german performance at Haydarpasa railwaystation, but is apparently delayed. One of the trainstaff serves us some tea, we can hardly communicate due to the different languages but still we have a lot of fun together.

German thoughts about the project

Apparently the Turkish media are pretty interested in the Orient-Express project. Just before the first performance of the theatre train in the eastern part of Istanbul, we partly follow a press talk of the leading dramatic advisor and the project manager of the german theatre crew. Jörg Bochow and Christian Holtzhauer explain their aim and difficulties with this project; apparently, not everything is as easy as it might seem.


Their talk is not just followed by the media and us, but also the Turkish directors Övül Avkiran and Mustafa Avkiran are present and interested in the Germans ideas and thoughts.

At the rehearsal of the turkish ensemble, we're fascinated by the sound of an instrument called Kanun, which is kind of a turkish harp or zither. In the conference coach of our theatre train we're meeting the actors practicing wonderful songs for their performance.

Touched by the warm but still strange sound to our ears we're dreaming of staying in Istanbul. We're watching seagulls over the Bosphorus as the sun sets behind the Golden Horn.

It was a long way from Ankara to Istanbul...

After a nearly 10 hour train trip we safely arrived in Istanbul and left the train on its new location: the train station “Haydarpasa”. Istanbul is a great and adventurous city so that we thought we put some new pictures onto the slideshow you find on the right side. Have a look and enjoy.

And especially for the soccer fans we do not want to miss out on mentioning todays UEFA-Cup-final between Werder Bremen and Schachtjor Donezk.

The train leaves to his first destination !

Finally, after a one week stay in Ankara, the train leaves to his first destination. After a last picture was taken at the station, the actors, technicians and directors are heading for Istanbul.

Demonstration

Sunday morning, in front of the hotel of the german theatre group: a couple of thousand people with red flags. We're told they demonstrate for Atatuerk, for Turkey and as well for two imprisoned turkish journalists. Or perhaps this is all about the national day of Turkey which will be celebrated in a couple of days.

Childhood-memories coming true

During daytime somewhere in the outskirts of Ankara. We were told that here the Orient-Express-Theatre-Train should be painted and pasted. When exactly, nobody knew; where exactly, nobody was able to tell; finally we found it.
Huge foils are printed and pasted in long lanes onto the surface with unexpected accuracy. At the end we spend a whole day on this side track, communicating with our basic Turkish we have learned so far. And still we manage to jump on the suddenly arriving locomotive to catch a ride back to the main station. It is time for another performance of the Turkish Play “Ex-Press”.
Driving in front of this train feels a bit like childhood-memories coming true….

But still something had to be done!

After an astounding and exiting premiere of the Turkish Play "Ex-Press" there was no time to wait. Last preparations for the German premiere of "80 Day 80 Nights" had to be done. And it was not just to be decided whether national colours should be represented in the set and probs or if there would be artistic freedom.

Finally they all managed and for the second night and second premiere the train opened its wonderful stage in front of an enthusiastic audience.

"Europe we are coming"

All preparations are finally finished!

Today all preparations are finally finished.

“Orient-Express”, the once and only theatrical train journey from Ankara to Stuttgart will be a kind of starting with the premiere of the Turkish Play “Ex-Press”. Tomorrow the German Play “80 Days 80 Nights” will have its premiere and the train journey will start on Monday, when we leave Ankara and when we are heading for Istanbul.

From now on you will find every day some new information an video about “Orient-Express”.

Starting Soon !

A theatrical journey through Europe.
The Orient Express will begin its European journey in Ankara in May 2009. In a converted freight car, theatre ensembles from six european countries will perform plays in their own language at 11 different locations during their journey. Following the premiere in their hometown, each ensemble will travel by train to the next city where it will perform again and meet up with the next ensemble, which, in turn, will perform its premiere. In terms of content, the theatre project examines "European identity", expectations of and past experience with the European unification process, and issues like escape, expulsion, mobility and settling down. Following stops in Turkey, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Germany, the train will arrive at its final destination two months later - the port of Stuttgart. There, all the participants will meet once again at a theatre festival and perform their pieces on the rolling stage.