Playwriting

ODE TO PERSEPHONE

Monologue in Seven Acts

by Cristiane Bouger

Staged in 2001 in Curitiba, Irati, and Guarapuava/Brazil.

Unpublished / Translated into English in 2019

Ode to Persephone is a theater and sculpture-in-process hybrid play. The play is inspired both by Mucha’s art-nouveau lithography and the paintings by Gustav Klimt. The seven-act monologue borrows from the Greek myth of Persephone with the intent to parallel the queen of the underworld to a woman whose relations are as fragmented as the contemporary world: an age where information, connections, and relationships are ephemeral. The play does not victimize the woman who is abducted by Hades, the infernal god, opting to picture Persephone as an ironic survivor who faces her own hell instead, in a world full of dead end streets and roof railings.

Absorbed in a fragmented narrative, Persephone is the muse of her lovers/sculptors who create new clay sculptures of her at each show during the 50-minute play. Their presence creates an allusion to the chorus of the Greek tragedies. However, in Ode to Persephone the unity of the chorus is subverted through the individual expressions manifested in the sculptural forms. Just as Persephone seduces and manipulates her lovers, she is also lured by the images molded by them.

Ode to Persephone [Polifônica Sincrética – ou Ode à Perséfone]

Year of Production: 2001

Theater Runnings:

Espaço Dois – Casa de Artes (Curitiba, January 11th –28th, 2001)

Auditório UNICENTRO – Campus Irati (Irati, June 15th, 2001)

I Mostra da FAP – Memorial de Curitiba (Curitiba, August 1st, 2001)

Auditório UNICENTRO – Campus Guarapuava (Guarapuava, August 31st, 2001)

Dramaturgy and Art Direction: Cristiane Bouger

Starring:

Débora Segantine as Persephone

Sculptors (Chorus):

André Baliu

Cesar Augusto

Juan Parada

André Krüger (in Guarapuava)

Set Design by Andressa Ferrari

Set Technician: Cesar Augusto

Costumes Design by Cristina Morgenstern

Costumes Sewing by Rosângela Bonifácio and Maria Ângela Bonifácio

Light and Sound Design by Cristiane Bouger

Editing and Audio Mastering by Beto Leão

Physical Training by Hany Morgenstern

Alternative Therapeutic Services by Sandriane Kalamar Martins (Shanti Instituto)

Photography at Espaço Dois by Carlão Busato

Photography at Memorial de Curitiba by Júlio Covello

Mentoring by Paulo Biscaia Filho

Consultancy by Margarida Gandara Rauen

Photography by Carlão Busato, 2001.

Photography by Jonas Júnior, 1999.

THE LAST SUPPER

by Cristiane Bouger

Staged in 1999/2000 in Curitiba/Brazil.

Unpublished

Bouger’s first original evening-length work was conceived as a dance-theater multimedia play with existential thematic, non-linear narrative, and no characters on the stage. Influenced by The Symposium, by Plato, her earliest intent was to write a play about love. Nevertheless, the text presented a completely different tone since the first draft, revealing many facets of a non-specified existential searching. Each actor portrays different masks/states of mind of the same character, who faces passages of insanity, obsession, melancholy, narcissism, and imprisonment in her own searching. The play also evokes aspects of media manipulation and the loneliness pacified via chat rooms. The structure of the play was created not to specify any chronology or geographical location. The narrative is deconstructed during its 90 minutes by using distancing effects as in the making of video, on which the cast discusses their perception regarding the searching pictured on the play. The Last Supper is a monologue, though it is a plural, multifaceted and polyphonic one. Through its dramaturgy the character struggles within her own searching, turning impossible the existence of any stability as she emerges in an obsessive—or solely peculiar—individualism. In a text in which surviving against oneself is the constant challenge, the lyric/acid lines are confronted by the movement score. The work celebrates the falling and overcoming of a human being who is not fearful to face her own mirrored image. In the last instance, The Last Supper is still a text on love. It is the last banquet before one’s own failure, which is followed by a constant, ironic and prophetic restart towards a new dream.

THE LAST SUPPER – a theatrical experiment

Year of Production: 1999

Theater Runnings:

Espaço Cênico (December 3rd –19th, 1999)

TUCA – PUCPR (May 18th, 2000)

Dramaturgy and Art Direction: Cristiane Bouger

Choreographic Direction: Hany Morgenstern

Cast:

André Krüger

Bibiana Terra

Carolina Fauquemont

Daniel Teodoro

Guta Ruiz

Set Design by Andressa Ferrari

Set Technician: Hugo Morgenstern

Sound Design by Cristiane Bouger

Light Design by Cristiane Bouger

Original Costumes by Maike Butzke

Physical Training by Fernanda Machado

Tai Chi Chuan Instructor: Pier Angeli

Alternative Therapeutic Services by Sandriane Kalamar Martins (Shanti Instituto)

Original Soundtrack "To Pulse" by Mamelucos Orbitais

Vocals: Jô Marçal

Groove Box: Flávia Bley

Editing and Audio Mastering by James (Jamute Áudio)

Staff’s Video Direction by Fabianne Balvedi

Camera and Video Image Production: Adriana Akai, Ayumi Nakaba, Camila Heimoski, Daniella Botelho, Denise Ushikubo, Everton Seino, Fabiana Bubniak, Gisele Lozada, Josiane Ando, Juliana Faigenbaum, and Maria Cecília Lugnani

Video Editing Technicians: Dani Lima, Everson Marcelo Newmann and Luciano Silveira

Photo Shoot by Jonas Júnior

Photography Documentation by Carlão Busato

Graphic Design by Cristiane Bouger

Production Manager: Guta Ruiz

Consultancy by Margarida Gandara Rauen

// ART

LIVE ART

MULTIMEDIA

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ART LIBRARY

MEDIA LIBRARY

EXHIBITIONS & SCREENINGS

CRISTIANE BOUGER

CONTACT

// WRITING

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TRANSLATION

ODE TO PERSEPHONE

Monologue in Seven Acts

by Cristiane Bouger

Staged in 2001 in Curitiba, Irati, and Guarapuava/Brazil.

Unpublished / Translated into English in 2019

Ode to Persephone is a theater and sculpture-in-process hybrid play. The play is inspired both by Mucha’s art-nouveau lithography and the paintings by Gustav Klimt. The seven-act monologue borrows from the Greek myth of Persephone with the intent to parallel the queen of the underworld to a woman whose relations are as fragmented as the contemporary world: an age where information, connections, and relationships are ephemeral. The play does not victimize the woman who is abducted by Hades, the infernal god, opting to picture Persephone as an ironic survivor who faces her own hell instead, in a world full of dead end streets and roof railings.

Absorbed in a fragmented narrative, Persephone is the muse of her lovers/sculptors who create new clay sculptures of her at each show during the 50-minute play. Their presence creates an allusion to the chorus of the Greek tragedies. However, in Ode to Persephone the unity of the chorus is subverted through the individual expressions manifested in the sculptural forms. Just as Persephone seduces and manipulates her lovers, she is also lured by the images molded by them.

Ode to Persephone [Polifônica Sincrética – ou Ode à Perséfone]

Year of Production: 2001

Theater Runnings:

Espaço Dois – Casa de Artes (Curitiba, January 11th –28th, 2001)

Auditório UNICENTRO – Campus Irati (Irati, June 15th, 2001)

I Mostra da FAP – Memorial de Curitiba (Curitiba, August 1st, 2001)

Auditório UNICENTRO – Campus Guarapuava (Guarapuava, August 31st, 2001)

THE LAST SUPPER

by Cristiane Bouger

Staged in 1999/2000 in Curitiba/Brazil.

Unpublished

Bouger’s first original evening-length work was conceived as a dance-theater multimedia play with existential thematic, non-linear narrative, and no characters on the stage. Influenced by The Symposium, by Plato, her earliest intent was to write a play about love. Nevertheless, the text presented a completely different tone since the first draft, revealing many facets of a non-specified existential searching. Each actor portrays different masks/states of mind of the same character, who faces passages of insanity, obsession, melancholy, narcissism, and imprisonment in her own searching. The play also evokes aspects of media manipulation and the loneliness pacified via chat rooms. The structure of the play was created not to specify any chronology or geographical location. The narrative is deconstructed during its 90 minutes by using distancing effects as in the making of video, on which the cast discusses their perception regarding the searching pictured on the play. The Last Supper is a monologue, though it is a plural, multifaceted and polyphonic one. Through its dramaturgy the character struggles within her own searching, turning impossible the existence of any stability as she emerges in an obsessive—or solely peculiar—individualism. In a text in which surviving against oneself is the constant challenge, the lyric/acid lines are confronted by the movement score. The work celebrates the falling and overcoming of a human being who is not fearful to face her own mirrored image. In the last instance, The Last Supper is still a text on love. It is the last banquet before one’s own failure, which is followed by a constant, ironic and prophetic restart towards a new dream.

THE LAST SUPPER – a theatrical experiment

Year of Production: 1999

Theater Runnings:

Espaço Cênico (December 3rd –19th, 1999)

TUCA – PUCPR (May 18th, 2000)

ODE TO PERSEPHONE

Monologue in Seven Acts

by Cristiane Bouger

Staged in 2001 in Curitiba, Irati, and Guarapuava/Brazil.

Unpublished / Translated into English in 2019

Ode to Persephone is a theater and sculpture-in-process hybrid play. The play is inspired both by Mucha’s art-nouveau lithography and the paintings by Gustav Klimt. The seven-act monologue borrows from the Greek myth of Persephone with the intent to parallel the queen of the underworld to a woman whose relations are as fragmented as the contemporary world: an age where information, connections, and relationships are ephemeral. The play does not victimize the woman who is abducted by Hades, the infernal god, opting to picture Persephone as an ironic survivor who faces her own hell instead, in a world full of dead end streets and roof railings.

Absorbed in a fragmented narrative, Persephone is the muse of her lovers/sculptors who create new clay sculptures of her at each show during the 50-minute play. Their presence creates an allusion to the chorus of the Greek tragedies. However, in Ode to Persephone the unity of the chorus is subverted through the individual expressions manifested in the sculptural forms. Just as Persephone seduces and manipulates her lovers, she is also lured by the images molded by them.

Ode to Persephone [Polifônica Sincrética – ou Ode à Perséfone]

Year of Production: 2001

Theater Runnings:

Espaço Dois – Casa de Artes (Curitiba, January 11th –28th, 2001)

Auditório UNICENTRO – Campus Irati (Irati, June 15th, 2001)

I Mostra da FAP – Memorial de Curitiba (Curitiba, August 1st, 2001)

Auditório UNICENTRO – Campus Guarapuava (Guarapuava, August 31st, 2001)

Bouger’s first original evening-length work was conceived as a dance-theater multimedia play with existential thematic, non-linear narrative, and no characters on the stage. Influenced by The Symposium, by Plato, her earliest intent was to write a play about love. Nevertheless, the text presented a completely different tone since the first draft, revealing many facets of a non-specified existential searching. Each actor portrays different masks/states of mind of the same character, who faces passages of insanity, obsession, melancholy, narcissism, and imprisonment in her own searching. The play also evokes aspects of media manipulation and the loneliness pacified via chat rooms. The structure of the play was created not to specify any chronology or geographical location. The narrative is deconstructed during its 90 minutes by using distancing effects as in the making of video, on which the cast discusses their perception regarding the searching pictured on the play. The Last Supper is a monologue, though it is a plural, multifaceted and polyphonic one. Through its dramaturgy the character struggles within her own searching, turning impossible the existence of any stability as she emerges in an obsessive—or solely peculiar—individualism. In a text in which surviving against oneself is the constant challenge, the lyric/acid lines are confronted by the movement score. The work celebrates the falling and overcoming of a human being who is not fearful to face her own mirrored image. In the last instance, The Last Supper is still a text on love. It is the last banquet before one’s own failure, which is followed by a constant, ironic and prophetic restart towards a new dream.

THE LAST SUPPER – a theatrical experiment

Year of Production: 1999

Theater Runnings:

Espaço Cênico (December 3rd –19th, 1999)

TUCA – PUCPR (May 18th, 2000)

ODE TO PERSEPHONE

Monologue in Seven Acts

by Cristiane Bouger

Staged in 2001 in Curitiba, Irati, and Guarapuava/Brazil.

Unpublished / Translated into English in 2019

Ode to Persephone is a theater and sculpture-in-process hybrid play. The play is inspired both by Mucha’s art-nouveau lithography and the paintings by Gustav Klimt. The seven-act monologue borrows from the Greek myth of Persephone with the intent to parallel the queen of the underworld to a woman whose relations are as fragmented as the contemporary world: an age where information, connections, and relationships are ephemeral. The play does not victimize the woman who is abducted by Hades, the infernal god, opting to picture Persephone as an ironic survivor who faces her own hell instead, in a world full of dead end streets and roof railings.

Absorbed in a fragmented narrative, Persephone is the muse of her lovers/sculptors who create new clay sculptures of her at each show during the 50-minute play. Their presence creates an allusion to the chorus of the Greek tragedies. However, in Ode to Persephone the unity of the chorus is subverted through the individual expressions manifested in the sculptural forms. Just as Persephone seduces and manipulates her lovers, she is also lured by the images molded by them.

Ode to Persephone [Polifônica Sincrética – ou Ode à Perséfone]

Year of Production: 2001

Theater Runnings:

Espaço Dois – Casa de Artes (Curitiba, January 11th –28th, 2001)

Auditório UNICENTRO – Campus Irati (Irati, June 15th, 2001)

I Mostra da FAP – Memorial de Curitiba (Curitiba, August 1st, 2001)

Auditório UNICENTRO – Campus Guarapuava (Guarapuava, August 31st, 2001)

Bouger’s first original evening-length work was conceived as a dance-theater multimedia play with existential thematic, non-linear narrative, and no characters on the stage. Influenced by The Symposium, by Plato, her earliest intent was to write a play about love. Nevertheless, the text presented a completely different tone since the first draft, revealing many facets of a non-specified existential searching. Each actor portrays different masks/states of mind of the same character, who faces passages of insanity, obsession, melancholy, narcissism, and imprisonment in her own searching. The play also evokes aspects of media manipulation and the loneliness pacified via chat rooms. The structure of the play was created not to specify any chronology or geographical location. The narrative is deconstructed during its 90 minutes by using distancing effects as in the making of video, on which the cast discusses their perception regarding the searching pictured on the play. The Last Supper is a monologue, though it is a plural, multifaceted and polyphonic one. Through its dramaturgy the character struggles within her own searching, turning impossible the existence of any stability as she emerges in an obsessive—or solely peculiar—individualism. In a text in which surviving against oneself is the constant challenge, the lyric/acid lines are confronted by the movement score. The work celebrates the falling and overcoming of a human being who is not fearful to face her own mirrored image. In the last instance, The Last Supper is still a text on love. It is the last banquet before one’s own failure, which is followed by a constant, ironic and prophetic restart towards a new dream.

THE LAST SUPPER – a theatrical experiment

Year of Production: 1999

Theater Runnings:

Espaço Cênico (December 3rd –19th, 1999)

TUCA – PUCPR (May 18th, 2000)