Werner Schwab, known almost exclusively as a playwright during his lifetime, saw himself primarily as a prose writer—with strong connections to his work as a visual artist. The novel Joe Mc Vie alias Josef Thierschädl (Joe McVie, aka Josef Thierschädel), written in Denmark in 1988, immediately preceded the work on his successful play Die Präsidentinnen(First Ladies or Holy Mothers).

For the past ten years, Theater Quadrat has created bold adaptations of texts not originally written for the stage. The group now aims to make Schwab’s novel dramatically palpable as a journey through the identities of Joe Mc Vie. These identities tumble by like his various names (“John McWolf of London, aka Johann Wolfsberger of Gugging”) and move within a world whose coordinates—Austria, 1988, omnipresence of the federal president, country life with “local council, pub, fire department, church”—are increasingly shifting in the direction of comics and splatter films.  

Production: Theater Quadrat
Concept: Alexander Kropsch
Dramaturgy: Werner Halbedl
With Werner Halbedl and Rudi Widerhofer
Stagecraft: Peter Spall

Link

https://2022.steirischerherbst.at/en/program/events/3840/theater-quadrat