Nadirs - Lowlands - Shadowlands: Herta Müller’s Niederungen and the Dramaturgy of the Body

Talented Romanian director Mihaela Panainte adapts Nobel Laureate Herta Müller’s visceral first book for an intimate studio performance that capitalizes on the dynamic energy of a young and well-oiled ensemble, and explores corporality in a mesmerising installation that tests the boundaries of autobiographical writing in and for performance. By turning to an initially censored piece of literary fiction that is also rather economical with words, Panainte’s production celebrates the precision of carefully chosen words and theatrical images, and highlights the universality inherent in the source material, dismantling the illusion of innocence often associated with village life and defying nostalgic reminiscences of times and events past. Produced at the studio of the National Theatre in Iaşi, operating as a contemporary creative hub mainly for younger artists, this sell-out production has proven appeal to a remarkable cross-section of the local population, and is successfully enticing new audiences to contemporary experimental theatre making that intersects the tradition of text-based drama with visual arts and forms of movement-based performance.

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