The last gem
The last gem is a theater project that has been directed by the director Jens-Erwin Siemssen since 1991. It does not stage its pieces on a stage but in original locations that are part of the content. The theater performances are produced with an international ensemble in Germany , Europe and overseas.
Performance venues
The productions reflect the examination of the cultural landscape on the North Sea coast . The historical venues for the "last gem" are not always easily accessible. The Langlütjen naval fortress , which is actually closed to visitors, was approached by ship from Bremerhaven. The MUNA Lübberstedt , where the history of this area was played in 2010 after it was cleared by the Bundeswehr , was only accessible to visitors on the disused track from Lübberstedt station with a chartered historic railcar from 1920. He also drove the audience to different locations within the former military compound during the performance. The lost sons told in 2010 about two young Spiekeroogers who went to Greenland to go whaling . In addition to Spiekeroog, the piece was also performed in Bremerhaven, Cuxhaven , a cultural center and an old transchuppen in Nuuk and Uummannaq on the island.
Performance content
“The performances tell the stories of the venues and their residents. The pieces mostly arise from oral tradition. The theater favors international themes that relate regional history to other parts of the world. For this, guest artists from the respective cultural circles are invited and guest performances are carried out in the partner country. "
The content of the plays is always based on historical facts that the director Jens-Erwin Siemssen has carefully researched. That's why they come very close to documentaries.
Stick warfare in the French era on the North Sea coast
During the continental blockade imposed by Napoleon , fishing and cargo shipping on the North Sea coast came to a standstill. The play Stick Warfare (2011) is about the hardship and uprisings on the coast.
Boat People
After fleeing across the South China Sea , a family from Vietnam reached their asylum in northern Germany in the snowy winter of 1979 .
Muna Lübberstedt
During the war, from 1941 to 1945, forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners produced sea mines and anti-aircraft ammunition in the MUNA Lübberstedt , a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp .
The prodigal sons
The play performed in 2010 at various locations in Germany and Greenland is about the whalers who set out from the North Sea coast to go whaling in Greenland .
Altluneberg manor
For a long time, life in Altluneberg near Bremerhaven was determined by the manor. After the Second World War, many refugees earned their living there and helped the business flourish for the last time. After the cessation of the business (1980) the "last gem" helped the spectators to access the otherwise closed area with the large stables and a park behind the manor house.
Downfall of Johanne
In 1854 the three-masted barque "Johanne" was on the way from Bremerhaven to America. The predominantly Hessian emigrants did not arrive there because the ship got into a storm off Heligoland and stranded at Spiekeroog . In May 2009, the play was premiered at the original location, the beach in front of the island. After that it was performed in Bremerhaven and Cuxhaven to a large extent in Low German .
The ship was cold
In a "walk-in show", the visitors were led in small groups through the now vacant seaman's home in the Bremerhaven fishing port . House mothers, seamen, kitchen wives, pastors and cooks talked about the life of seamen.
Koldewey's polar journey
Karl Christian Koldewey set out from Bremerhaven in 1868 with Greenland on the First German North Polar Expedition . The preserved ship is one of the exhibits of the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven . The play was staged on this sailing ship.
King of Tonga
“The legend of the seaman Hinrich Meyer is told in the Altes Land. The sailor from Jork is said to have been shipwrecked off Tonga , married a chief's daughter and was crowned King of Tonga. With 16 blue steel barrels, the last gem staged a theater performance in front of the Cuxhaven ball beacon about the longing from the North Sea to the South Sea. "
Cod war
1977 there were between Iceland and Britain the conflict over the 200-mile zone in the fisheries law. 30 years later this fight was performed with the play in Cuxhaven and at the fish market in the Icelandic town of Hafnarfjörður .
Samaria
Shortly after the war, the passenger steamer Samaria brought homeless refugees from Cuxhaven to Halifax (Canada) . The story of the emigrants was told 60 years later at the original location in Steubenhöft in Cuxhaven and at Pier 21 in Halifax.
Langlütjen II
In 2006, Siemssen and his team of actors went to the fortress island of Langlütjen to perform a documentary play in the casemates and ramparts on the island. The spectators were taken to the island by ship from Bremerhaven, giving the public access to the island for the first time.
Mkono Wa Damu
The title of this piece, which was performed in Cuxhaven, Zanzibar and Tanzania in 2005 , is called in German: "The man with the bloody hands". It deals with Carl Peters , who founded the Society for German Colonization in 1884 , acquired the core area of what would later become German East Africa , but was dishonorably dismissed from service in the Reich in 1897.
Sorr
In 2004 the play "Sorr", which deals with life in the mudflats , was performed in Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark . "The production told of the silt , the tide, the storm, the fish, the work and the ship."
Ice center
The presentation took place in 2004 at -24 ° C in the cold store. The subject was Alfred Wegener's last expedition to Greenland . The script was written based on the diary - the audience were given sleeping bags and hot water bottles to protect themselves from the cold of the location.
Morriña
In 2003 the play was performed in the fishing ports of Cuxhaven and Vilanova de Arousa in Spain . It tells of immigrants who immigrated to Cuxhaven from Spain to work in the fishing industry. The title means in German: homesickness.
Exodus
In the summer of 1947, 4,500 homeless Jews tried to emigrate to Palestine on the Exodus steamer . Under the eyes of the horrified world public, British soldiers took the passengers in Haifa from the ship at gunpoint and deported them to cold post-war Germany of all places. They held out for months in former Wehrmacht barracks in Emden and Wilhelmshaven until the establishment of the State of Israel made it possible for them to move.
Displaced
She hung under a truck for three days and three nights. Together with her little brother and her parents, the thirteen-year-old fled a country in the middle of Europe for fear of wandering gangs of young militiamen.
A theater workshop with fifteen young migrants from Bosnia, Macedonia, Sudan and Afghanistan started in the train station in Ge possiblyeth . They told of their homeland and their escape, in order to turn these stories into a play over the coming months. From April they will be supported by twenty students from the Max Eyth School.
Village asylum
They come from refugee camps in Syria , Ethiopia , the Congo or any other hotspot in the world. Have been through violence, hunger or drought. Were brought to Germany by air and were poorly prepared for life abroad in a transit camp. Now they have arrived in a small village in Lower Saxony. Initially eyed suspiciously by the village community, which is afraid of peace and quiet.
Content research of the pieces
The director Jens-Erwin Siemssen researches the historical content of his plays intensively. He let the refugees tell him about the escape of the boat people . He researched the connections between the plight of the coastal inhabitants and the power of Napoleon in archives and obtained information from historians from the region around Bremerhaven. For the play Muna Lübberstedt , Siemssen not only went to the archives, but also spoke to people who had worked in the factory during the Nazi era and to civil servants of the Bundeswehr in Muna-Lübberstedt. Siemssen found out about the contents of the piece Rittergut Altluneberg from the owner of the estate, which Werner Schierenberg from Bremen bought in 1897 and whose heirs ceased operations in 1980. For the sinking of the Johanne , the director researched church registers, newspaper articles and court files. He also sought contact with people who still knew oral tradition.
logistics
Although the theater project The Last Gem has no house or stage, it needs practice rooms for rehearsals and equipment to equip the playgrounds. In the station Geestenseth the municipality Schiffdorf and the station Breddorf in the joint community Tarmstedt the project corresponding options has. Earlier facilities (signal box, waiting rooms, goods shed) and own wagons are used in Geierendeneth. The former Breddorf train station on the edge of the Teufelsmoor is intended as a studio for authors. Workshops and accommodations for the participants are housed in seven wagons at the Geestenether train station. An EVB route from Bremerhaven to Bremervörde runs through the station . The transport company also takes the train to the venues where performances are to take place. If a venue does not have a rail connection, the theater team can use a tent camp.
The performances take place in the warmer season. In winter, a children's theater takes place on its own train at the regional train stations.
Web links
- Official homepage of 'The Last Gem'
- The last gem on the side of the Free Theater in Lower Saxony
- The last gem on the EVB cultural contacts page
- Tanja Krämer, acting for the past (PDF; 690 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ We don't want to go on stage ( memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in The German Stage , September 2009
- ↑ A particularly macabre piece of German history was performed in August 1998: "G56. On open field". It's about a train with forced laborers that was supposed to run from Bremen to Bergen-Belsen in April . Because regular train traffic was no longer possible due to the destroyed railway lines, the train never arrived there. The terrible journey ended a few days later in Brillit just before Bremervörde . The survivors were taken to the Sandbostel concentration camp reception camp . Inmates were also "evacuated" from Bremen to Sandbostel on foot (see the dissolution of the Bremen camps ). A lost train that was also supposed to go to Bergen-Belsen and never got there has been documented in more detail. (See Lost Train .)
- ^ Presentation of the play "Muna Lübberstedt" in the HAZ
- ↑ Information from the Bielefeld City Archives about Carl Peters ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 161 kB)
- ^ Quote from the description on the theater project's website, accessed on January 10, 2012
- ↑ Hein Carstens: With fork and flail against oppressors - Wursten's freedom hero Anton Biehl died 175 years ago ; in: Niederdeutsches Heimatblatt, No. 732, December 2010; ( online ( Memento of the original from March 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note .; PDF; 7.8 MB)
