Leopold von Verschuer


Alvaro García de Zúñiga and Leopold von Verschuer first met in Lisbon in 1997. Leopold was on tour with a Valère Novarina's play, "La chair de l'Homme", a play that Leopold had translated into German. In fact, it was Valère's translator into Portuguese, Dóris Graça Dias, that presented them to each other. Doris was also to translate a couple of Alvaro's plays : "Le Théâtre n'est que du Cinéma" and "Théâtre Impossible".


"Théâtre Impossible" was comissioned by Prof. Yvette Centeno for the Gulbenkian Foundation in 1998. It was written for Leopold and to be played as a solo ponctuated here and there by a voice off, Alínea B. Issilva.


This play opened in Lisbon in November 1998 and a few years, latter, in 2002 and 2003, Leopold, within his independent theater company named Théâtre Impossible produced a tour of the play in several German cities and in Austria.


This tour brought the attention of Markus Heuger, from the Studio Akustische Kunst of WDR 3 to Alvaro's and Leopold joint work. They were therefore invited to propose a project for the SAK. A few years before, in 2000, Alvaro had participated in a contemporary art bienale with a "manual" that Leopold had seen in Lisbon. And the idea of transforming this "manual" into a Hörspiel was born. Manual became Manuel - half man, half handbook, a radio trilogy that was first broadcasted in 2003 & 2004. Leopold played the main character and was also the translater of the play into German.



...to be continued...



CV available in German 15dpx, in French 15dpx and in Portuguese 15dpx

blablalab