Sant Bani School 2008 Spring Drama Performance
Fast-moving, cinematic scene fragments, with eerie, surreal imagery, down-to-earth language, and unexpected humor rolled together in Sant Bani School’s presentation of the play Woyzeck by Georg Büchner, performed at the school Thursday, April 17 and Friday, April 18 at 7pm, and Saturday, April 19 at 2 pm, 2008. Directed by Craig Jaster, the play was accompanied by live music composed by the director and conducted by Noelle Beaudin.
Woyzeck is considered one of the most important plays in the history of German theater and in the history of the development of the modern theater. Written in 1836 but unfinished when the playwright died of typhus at age 23, the play is loosely based on a real case history, a murder and controversial trial of the early 1820’s, in which one Johann Christian Woyzeck was arrested for stabbing to death his lover. After being tried and sentenced to death, he told a visiting clergyman about visions he had seen and voices he had heard telling him to commit the murder. His defense lawyers lodged an appeal so that his mental state could be thoroughly examined, but in the end he was executed.
Senior Ethan Lawrence of Sanbornton, NH played the part of the soldier Woyzeck, and junior Katharina Duenn of Køln, Germany, played his ill-fated common-law wife, Marie. Though the world of the play is casually cruel, a strong sense of tenderness and empathy is written into Woyzeck’s descent into madness, and the two upper class characters, or rather caricatures, in the play – the Doctor (senior Ernest Tabiri, of Berekum, Ghana) and the army Captain (junior Ben Pollak of Laconia, NH) – provide comic relief.
In addition to the twelve high school actors, joining the action for this production were four student musicians, playing original music on cello, violin, accordion, guitar and percussion, under the direction of Noelle Beaudin, who directs the New Hampshire Independent School of Music as well as teaches private piano lessons.
Sant Bani School is an independent kindergarten through twelfth grade day school located in Sanbornton, NH. It was founded in 1973 with six students and has grown to over 175. No child is ever turned away for a family’s inability to pay; over 70 percent of Sant Bani students receive financial aid. For information call (603) 934-4240
