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Woyzeck Audio Introduction
Thank you for booking tickets to the Old Vic audio-described performance of Woyzeckby Georg Bȕchner, in a new version byJack Thorne. This world premiere has been directed by Joe Murphy. The performance lasts for approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes, including an interval of 20 minutes. The audio described performance will take place on Mon 12 Jun at 7pm. The touch tour will begin at 5.30pm.
Touch tours are completely free and last about 20 minutes. They give you an opportunity to explore the set and handle some of the props. There will also be an opportunity to meet some members of the production team who bring the play to the stage. It is essential to book, so please call 020 7981 0981 to reserve your place. If you’re coming to the tour on your own we can arrange for a member of staff to accompany you. Please also let the box office know if you'd like to bring your guide dog into the auditorium and we will try to offer an aisle seat if one is available. The Front of House staff will be happy to take care of your dog during the performance if you would prefer. Please come to the foyer at 5.15pmin time for the 5.30pm touch tour.
Please be aware that there is strong language, nudity and sexual content in this production.
Some background to the play
The programme quotes Jack Thorne, the adapter of this new version of Woyzeck,‘There’s a reason why this is called the first working class tragedy. It’s about oppression and it’s about someone who feels oppressed but doesn’t necessarily understand what is oppressing him.’
The article goes on to explain that Thorne has taken the series of fragments left by Georg Bȕchner on his death in 1837 at the age of 23 to create an entirely new and radically conceived version that sets the play in West Berlin in 1981. Woyzeck is a soldier in the Berlin Armoured Division of the British Army of the Rhine, patrolling the border between East and West at the tail end of the Cold War. This was a period where, once in Germany, the army was on alert but at rest. Soldiers alternated tours of duty there – in what Thorne describes as ‘a strange colony’ – with periods in Northern Ireland, where their lives were at risk.
Set, characters and costumes
When we enter the auditorium, the stage is closed to us behind a heavy red velvet curtain. The curtain is framed by the theatre’s silver-grey proscenium arch. At the top of the arch, in the centre, is the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom depicting a lion on the left, unicorn on the right and the crown in the centre. Immediately below, a second royal coat of arms secures swags of red velvet at the top of the curtain.
The curtain rises to reveal a dimly lit space with dull brown floor and gun-metal grey back wall. The set consists of twenty-three identical panels each three metres high, two metres wide and thirty centimetres deep. The panels resemble sections of stud walling – the internal structure of an interior wall - awaiting a plasterboard finish. They are edged with a narrow timber border and are subdivided into unevenly sized sections by more timber strips, running both horizontally and vertically. The sides of the panels are open, revealing thick yellow insulation wadding, sandwiched between the wooden framework. This is faced with crumpled matt-grey foil.
These panels are arranged in regimented ranks: three columns of five panels are suspended high above the space positioned with military precision, ready to descend. On left and right of the space a column of four stands on the floor with the same precise spacing.
When the curtain rises the panels are out of sight, raised high above or slid out to the sides. During the progress of the action they move smoothly and silently in perfect unison forming various configurations, stacked or staggered, using all the panels or selections of them to create, shape, define and contain the action. At times shafts of harsh grey light glance off the panels or thin wisps of light mist hang above them.
Simple items of furniture indicate the location of the unfolding scenes: a wooden framed bed with rumpled bedclothes indicates the seedy apartment which provides a home forWoyzeck and his family. There’s also a pink cot with a blue quilt with cartoon characters on it anda green Care Bear inside. A plain folding wooden chair providesWoyzeck’s working environment as an army barber.
The story is set in 1980’s West Berlin. There are eightmajor characters and four minor ones, played by an ensemble.
Woyzeck is in his early twenties, a British squaddie in the occupying forces. He’s tall and muscular, dark-skinned, with a youthful, fresh face and short black hair. His gaze is serious and watchful. Woyzeck dresses in uniform even when at home – a brown singlet and khaki combat trousers. His ankles are wound with strips of brown fabric – puttees – to seal his heavy boots from water and mud. When on patrol he wears combat uniform of green and brown camouflage jacket with red flashes on the shoulders and khaki trousers. His brown beret is worn precisely and correctly, the front edge just above his eyebrows. He carries a semi-automatic rifle. Woyzeck has an earnestness that creases his brow and a nervous energy that keeps him on the move.
He shares a squalid flat with his girlfriend and their newborn baby. Marie is a delicately built Irish girl, about the same age as Woyzeck. She barely stands as tall as his shoulder. Marie has big brown eyes and a little pointed chin and her hair is a bushy auburn mass. She wears a baggy pink T shirt and turquoise shorts, later changing the shorts for a denim pair worn with a loose white batwing top with red and blue stripes. She either goes barefoot or wears flat blue pumps and a pink windcheater outside. Marie’s face is often pale and strained, but she lights up at the sight of Woyzeck.
Woyzeck goes on duty with another squaddie, Andrews. He’s a little older and more experienced than Woyzeck, and it shows in his swagger and bullishness. Andrews’ light brown hair is cut military-short. His ice-blue eyes are hooded, all emotion sucked out of them, and his thin-lipped wolfishgrin has a streak of cynicism. Like Woyzeck, he’s normally dressed in camouflage combats with a pistol at his belt, and when called on to react, his actions are quick and decisive. When he takes his shirt off, Andrews’ torso is taut and well-muscled, his tanned chest tattooed with a large black abstract pattern. Off duty, he wears a jacket in soft brown leather and blue jeans.
Their commanding officer is Captain Thompson. He’s just on the wrong side of middle age, a mild, pallid man with fluffy sandy hair, receding at the temples, and placid blue eyes. He first appears seated on the folding chair, dressed in a white vest and khaki trousers, his chin and long neck lathered with shaving foam.Thompson breezes through life blinkered from everything but his own privileged existence.
His wife, Maggie, is at least ten years younger, a willowy, languid red-blondewith a creamy complexion and a smile like a satisfied cat.Maggie wears her hair caught up casually in a slide. Her business is the role of Lady Bountiful, and her bounty is spread widely.Maggie’s dress is light and summery, knee-length, scoop-necked and full-sleeved, white with a pattern of lilac swirls. She carries a matching purple handbag on a gold chain, and over her shoulder is a red totebag with a stylized symbol of her chosen charity, a white hand on a heart. Her shoes are beige slingbacks with high heels. At her ears are gold hoop earrings and she wears a chunky gold bracelet and a wedding ring.
A German doctor arrives at the army camp. He’s Dr Martens, a thickset man in his sixties, with thick silver hair and beard. His eyes are shrewd and cold behind steel rimmed glasses. Martens wears a medical white coat, flapping open over his pink shirt and brown trousers. His tie is patterned in orange and brown. He takes meticulous notes on a clipboard.
Every now and again Woyzeck revisits memories of his childhood. He appears as a boy of about eight in a sand-colored jacket, white shirt and blue jeans.
His mother is a shadowy figure in a long crimson coat and a tight denim miniskirt, her blonde hair hanging in tangled hanks to her shoulders. She’s played by the same actor who plays Maggie, but Mother speaks in a harsh Cockney accent.
The ensemble of three plays other characters including two German border guards in smart grey uniforms, an undernourished East German girl and Woyzeck’s insistent landlord.
Cast and production credits
Woyzeck is played by John Boyega
His girlfriend Marie by Sarah Greene
The squaddie, Andrews is played by Ben Batt
Captain Thompson is played by Steffan Rhodri
His wife, Maggie by Nancy Carroll, who also plays Woyzeck’s mother
Dr Martens is played by DarrellD’Silva
Young Woyzeck is played by Reuel Guzman, Cyrus Odukale.or Carlo Brathwaite
The ensemble are Isabella Marshall, David Rubin and Theo Solomon
The Designer is Tom Scutt, the Lighting Designer, Neil Austin, and the Sound Designer, Gareth Fry
Composer, Isobel Waller-Bridge
Woyzeck is directed by Joe Murphy
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