Helena Waldmann
«Lucky Johnny»

Helena Waldmann has worked as a freelance theatre producer since 1992. Her works are concerned chiefly with the spectators' view of a piece, often employing unusual positions (seated on a revolving stage, lying prone etc.) to block their view of the stage and guide it indirectly by means of mirrors and projections. Waldmann's pieces are bewildering optical games with reality and illusion that take texts as their point of departure, but accord equal importance to space, physical bodies, voices, music and other sounds, projections and light. Of ‘Glücksjohnny' she says that ‘everything is divided in two as on a playing card. The three-dimensional stage is a perspective puzzle revolving around depth and two-dimensionality. Imaginary spaces emerge from which, as for Brecht's poker players, there's no escape to reality.' The sole actor on stage can be seen only as a silhouette or a projection. The soundtrack mixes speech and music, while video and light projections, thrown onto a screen and reflecting foil, create, open up and manipulate space. The premiere of ‘Glücksjohnny' took place on 15 May 1998 at the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt/M.