Beware of Pity (La impaciència del cor)

In 1939, the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig published a novel in which he wonders what compassion really is and notes how difficult it is to feel someone else’s pain. This is the story of Lieutenant Hofmiller, an Austro-Hungarian army officer who is invited to a party at a wealthy household. There he commits a terrible mistake by asking a young lady to dance, not knowing that she suffers from a paralysis that prevents her from walking. In an attempt to compensate for his unfortunate faux-pas, he begins to visit the girl regularly. As a result, she falls in love with him, with tragic consequences. Beware of Pity merges video and theatre, dialogue and narrative, with rare wisdom and mastery. In this production, actors illustrate the action while, in the shadows, other actors voice internal monologues or play the role of omniscient narrators. The result is a show that uses different techniques and languages to tell a fascinating story set in the context of the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Simon McBurney, actor, director and co-founder of the legendary British company Complicité (creators of a magnificent version of The Master and Margarita, seen at the Grec in 2012), teams up with the Schaubühne from Berlin, one of the most innovative German companies of the moment, directed since 1999 by Thomas Ostermeier.

Autor/a: Stefan Zweig; Versió / Adaptació: Simon McBurney, James Yeatman, Maja Zade i els membres de la companyia; Dramatúrgia: Maja Zade; Direcció: Simon McBurney; Codirecció: James Yeatman; Interpretació: Marie Burchard, Robert Beyer, Johannes Flaschberger, Christoph Gawenda, Moritz Gottwald, Laurenz Laufenberg i Eva Meckbach; Escenografia: Anna Fleischle; Vestuari: Holly Waddington; Disseny de la il€luminació: Paul Anderson; Disseny del so / Concepció sonora: Pete Malkin; Col€laboració en el disseny del so: Benjamin Grant; Disseny del vídeo: Will Duke;