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...