Nika Brettschneider

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Nika Brettschneider (* 9 February 1951 in Ostrava as Zdeňka Brettschneiderová ; † 30th June 2018 in Vienna ) was an Austrian , from Czechoslovakia coming actress , director , theater director, drama teacher and Charter 77 -Unterzeichnerin.

life and work

The time in Czechoslovakia

As the daughter of a hatter and milliner, Nika Brettschneider spent her childhood and youth in Ostrava before moving to Brno in 1966 , where she attended the drama department of the State Conservatory . There she passed her Matura in 1969. From 1969 to 1973 she studied acting at the Janáček Academy for Music and Performing Arts JAMU .
She was noticed early on because of her inappropriate political stance. In November 1971, she was the only one in the school to refuse to take part in the first, only officially free, in reality compulsory elections at the time of normalization (after the crackdown on the Prague Spring and the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union ), which almost happened would have resulted in her expulsion from the academy.
After completing her training, Nika Brettschneider played at some of the most important Czechoslovak experimental theaters : at Studio Ypsilon in Liberec (now in Prague ), at Divadlo Husa na provázku (German name: Theater Gans an der Leine ) in Brno and then at Hanácké divadlo in Prostějov ( today as HaDivadlo in Brno).

In 1974 Nika Brettschneider married the theater maker and philosopher Ludvík Kavín (* 1943), who was banned from working during the Prague Spring because of his political commitment. In 1975 their first son, Jakub, was born.
In 1976 Nika Brettschneider's contract at the Hanácké divadlo was not renewed because she had signed a protest note against the arrest of members of the subversive band The Plastic People of the Universe . As a result, and also because of her marriage to Kavín, who was classified as an enemy of the state, it was no longer officially possible for her to work as an actress, the family was under surveillance by the state security . Ludvík Kavín at least found work as a factory worker in Ostrava, Nika Brettschneider was able to secretly work as an extra in some theater productions in Ostrava.

In January 1977, Brettschneider and Kavín signed Charter 77 . Both immediately lost their jobs, and the two-year-old son was prevented from entering the kindergarten.

New start in Austria

The Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky offered all signatories of Charter 77 political asylum in Austria. Brettschneider and Kavín accepted this offer, left Czechoslovakia on July 7, 1977 and went to Vienna. Four years later, in September 1981, they also took Austrian citizenship.

Brettschneider worked in Vienna first as a theater dresser, then as an extra and choreographer in the Volkstheater . At the same time, she and her husband founded the independent theater group Verein Theater Brett - Compagnie Brettschneider and began to develop their own independent theater productions.
The first of these productions was The Light of the World by Charter 77 signatory Jiří Kolář . The world premiere took place in January 1978 in Brussels as part of the festival 10 Years of Prague Spring . Brettschneider and Kavín performed here together with Wolf Biermann, among others . A large number of other productions were created at various venues, mainly in Vienna, but also in Zurich , including Die Grube , also by Kolář, and Das Mündel wants to be a guardian by Peter Handke , as well as a large number of own play developments.
In 1981 Nika Brettschneider received a prize from the Ministry of Culture as an actress and director of Friederike Mayröcker's Die Versatzteile in the Impulshaus Maria Schutz am Semmering . In 1982 she was awarded the
Kainz Medal award for her non-verbal portrayal of Sancho Panza in her own production Don Quijote in Vienna .

Director of the Theater Brett

In 1984 Brettschneider and Kavín opened their own house in Vienna, the Brett Theater .
The opening production was The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart by Jan Amos Komenský , directed by Brettschneider and Kavín, who both also starred (the later politician Ulrike Lunacek was among the actors ).
In addition to her work as a theater director, Nika Brettschneider was also responsible for over 40 productions at Theater Brett and as an actress embodied leading and supporting roles, as well as some solo roles, in more than 55 productions.
Among the major roles they played during this period, including the included Antigone of Sophocles , the woman in Vaclav Havel's vernissage , the Iocaste in the infernal machine of Jean Cocteau , the lady of Zahndt in Dürrenmatt's physicists , Lady Macbeth as a solo role for Plays by Shakespeare and Ionesco , the Mariedl in Werner Schwab's Presidents , Alzinde in Ferdinand Raimund 's Moisasur's Zauberfluch , Winnie in Beckett's Happy Days and the Rosa in Felix Mitterer's Mein Ungeheuer .

From 1990 - commuting between Austria and the Czech Republic

Nika Brettschneider played mostly in German, but from 1990 occasionally again in Czech in some productions that were shown as guest performances in the Czech Republic as soon as this was possible again after the Velvet Revolution - including the Czech-language premieres of Odjinud ( From Foreigners ) by Ernst Jandl (directed by Petr Štindl, HaDivadlo Brünn 1996) and Nada. Nic ( Nada. Nothing ) by Friederike Mayröcker (director: Christoph Prückner, Divadlo Husa na provázku Brünn 1998).
Brettschneider and Kavín were awarded the CENTROPE Prize in 2013 for their effect as cultural mediators (in the area of ​​cross-border Central European theater) .

From 1990 Nika Brettschneider taught as an acting teacher at JAMU in Brno, where she had received her acting training, and ran her own studio there. In 1997 she completed her habilitation and was appointed lecturer , in 2007 she was awarded the title of professor.
From 2007 she also worked again as an actress in several productions at the Divadlo Husa na provázku in Brno.

Nika Brettschneider carried out all of these activities, that of actress, acting teacher and director of Theater Brett , until her death. Her last appearance in the theater at Theater Brett was the solo role in Woman on the Front by Alaine Polcz (from 2015). In Brno she played in Ze života hmyzu ( From the Lives of Insects ) by Karel Čapek until 2017 (her last performance was on October 26, 2017). She played her last role as Hejná in the posthumously broadcast Czech TV miniseries Rédl (2018). On June 30, 2018, she died in Vienna after a long and serious illness.

literature

  • Ludvík Kavín (ed.): Nika Brettschneider and her theater Brett . Verlag Theater Brett - Compagnie Brettschneider eV, Vienna 2018
  • Andrea Buršová: Herečka NIKA BRETTSCHNEIDEROVÁ v exilu aneb Portrét divadla THEATER BRETT do pádu “železné opony” (history of Theater Brett up to 1989, in Czech, with a list of all productions up to 2015 in the appendix). JAMU Publishing House, Brno 2018. ISBN 978-80-7460-149-1 . Available online (as a dissertation under the title Dramatická umění - Portrét divadla Theater Brett do pádu "železné opony" ) here: [1]
  • Rainer Darin: Theater Brett . In: Rainer Darin / Günter Seidl: Theater from below: from Artmann to Unger and from Drachengasse to Tschauner, Viennese small and medium-sized theaters and their authors , pp. 110 - 125. Edition S / Verlag der Österreichischen Staatsdruckerei, 1988, ISBN 3-7046-0092-X

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