What is The Funfair?
Curated by Kevin Johnson
The Funfair is an adaptation of
Ödön von Horváth’s 1932 play,
Kasimir und Karoline.
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This adaptation is written by Simon Stephens and you are seeing its united states premiere at cal rep.
From the Director - Will Detlefsen
Ödön Von Horváth is a great Austro-Hungarian playwright who wrote in German. Kasimir and Karoline is one of his best-known plays. It’s an early absurd, the atmosphere of Octoberfest in Münich predicting the War and Nazi times. It is a play about heartbreak, desire, and longing for something greater. It is a play about power: the power of the white straight male monolith, the power of sex, and the power of money.
Misogyny is rampant in Kasimir and Karoline as well as the Simon Stephens adaptation of The Funfair. Misogyny is rampant in everyday life: I see it on the subway in New York, I see it in popular contemporary films such as A Star is Born, I see it amongst my liberal "woke" friends, and I see it in our government. To direct this play in 2018, as a man, my task is two-fold: 1) listen to what the women in the room have to say about the misogyny in the play, and 2) be aware and pro-active of its contemporary resonance.
Our Funfair is set in America today because this play feels like it was written for our troubled contemporary society. Our approach as a company is to tackle the misogyny head on and ask our audiences to think about how systemic and repetitive violence towards women (real and fictional) affects our relationships and our world.
Many of Horváth’s writings center around the dangers of fascism and the complacency of society that allows such dangers to grow through indifference and inaction. He never lived to see the fulfillment of his predictions: his life was cut short when a tree branch fell on him during a thunderstorm in Paris in 1938. Though only 36 at the time of his death, he had produced 21 plays and four prose works garnering a significant amount of respect and attention from his colleagues and the public.
Ödön von Horváth’s works today serve as a reminder that the greatest tool fascist ideologies have at their disposal is the complacency of society. As we today witness the growth of extreme right-wing movements throughout the American and Europe, Harváth's writing are again becoming relevant.
The unfair
funfair
"it's a work of beauty".
"We've come so far. the human race"
"you might be. i won't".
"The Zeppelin is obviously a symbol. At some point you will understand everything"-
Horváth’s skit The Beauty of Schillingstrasse
In The Funfair the Zeppelin is gazed upon by the funfair goers, who imagine what it would be like if they were rich enough to afford a trip. Others reject the notion outright and claim "That's for the businessmen of this world...Not for the likes of us." The lowest amongst them "the freaks" are not even allowed to look at the Zepplin.
?What is the Zepplin in your life?
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?What is your dream that if you were rich enough, you could achieve?
Capital is king
In The Funfair peoples ability to have fun, go on rides, and be happy is determined by how much money they make. The economics of both the play and our lives are determined by a system called capitalism.
?What is capitalism?
?How does it shape the choices we make?
?How does it affect how we treat people?
"Under capitalism, sex might as well be with dead objects, not live collaborators"
VIDEO: INTRO TO CAPITALISM
VIDEO: VISUAlIZING USA'S DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH
your heart and mind
