Frederic Sonntag’s plays are experiencing various narrative structures and prefer thematic such as : relationship between fiction and reality, aesthetic of disappearance, the building and the loss of identity, the contemporary mythologies, the political issues of stories and myths, the forms of fears and contemporary paranoia, the Information warfare and crowd manipulation, the memory processes, the place of literature in the civilization of the image.
Born in 1978, Frédéric Sonntag is author and director. He has written a dozen of plays for which he was supported by the Centre National du Théâtre. They has been published in the series Tapuscrit-Théâtre Ouvert, in l’Avant-Scène Théâtre and at Editions Théâtrales. They has been presented in several theaters and festivals almost everywhere in France. Since 2009, he has participated in many international events dedicated to modern plays. His plays has been translated in many languages : English, German, Spanish (Chile, Argentina), Bulgarian, Catalan, Portuguese, Czech, Finnish, Greek, Serbian and Danish, and they are played in several countries.
Theatre works
2013/2014 Benjamin Walter
2011 / George Kaplan; first staged: March 2013, Husets Teater, Copenhague ; published in Nov. 2012
2010 / Soudaine timidite des crepuscules; first staged: February 2011, Panta Théâtre, Caen
2009 / Sous controle; first staged: February 2011, Little City Theatre Off the Channel, Sofia ; published in Mai 2009
2008 / Dans la zone interieure; first staged: December 2008, Théâtre Ouvert, Paris
2008 / Incantations; first staged: April 2008, Festival 360 – Mains d’œuvres, Saint-Ouen
2006 / Nous etions jeunes alors; first staged: November 2008, Théâtre Ouvert, Paris; published in german
2005 / Toby ou le saut du chien; first staged: June 2010, Festival Impatience – Théâtre de l’Odéon, Paris
2004 / Intrusion; first staged: March 2011, GAM, Santiago du Chili ; published in September 2004
2003 / Des heures entieres avant l’exil; first staged: June 2005, Festival Impatience – Théâtre de l’Odéon, Paris
2002 / Disparu(e)(s); first staged: Mai 2003, Festival Frictions – CDN de Djion ; published in September 2003
Mare Nostrum
A migrant who crossed the Mediterranean sea strands on an Italian beach and discovers a drone above his head. A writer has to face with his inability to write. A female artist is interviewed on radio concerning her new installation. In Barcelona, a man in charge of watching a super computer has to deal with strange visions. All this characters are connected with the 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck.
Benjamin Walter
Benjamin Walter is a 35 years old writer. Talented but secret, he often stayed in the shade, reluctant to be exposed, to be highlighted. In June 2011, without giving any explanation Benjamin Walter decided to stop writing. One month later, he disappeared without saying anything. In 2013, Frédéric Sonntag decided to conduct an inquiry about Benjamin Walter and his mysterious disappearance. This play is a mix between documentary, autofiction and detective novel. A play which tells us a journey cross Europe looking for Benjamin Walter.
Georges Kaplan
15 characters played by 5 actors (3 men, 2 women)
What is the link between a clandestine activist group on the verge of dissolution, a team of screenwriters looking for a new concept for a TV series and the invisible government of a powerful nation grappling with a danger that threatens the security of the country? One name: George Kaplan. George Kaplan is a three-part play with multiple narrative structures, a play on the political stakes of myths and stories, on the influence of Hollywood on our representation of world geopolitics, on information wars and crowd manipulation, on a hen that could save humanity, on a name that could change the face of the world.
– Extracts from George Kaplan –
The G.K.G.
The living-room of a country house. Wooden table, old chairs. In a corner, a coffee-machine, with coffee brewing.
A,B,C,D,E sitting, facing the audience and wearing masks of different kinds ( rubber mask of a political figure, plastic mask of a super-hero, distorted cut-out mask tied with a rubber band, washing-powder carton with cut-out holes for eyes and mouth…) silent and motionless, they seem to be sitting for a family group photo in front of a small camera.
A is holding a sheet of paper.
E gets up, starts the camera, checks in the visor, and comes back to his chair.
A starts reading the sheet of paper.
A “ We, the George Kaplan Group…
E Wait, wait…
E gets up, checks in the visor again, and comes back to his chair.
E All set.
A “ We, the George Kaplan Group, are soft-hearted people who can’t stand our times. For a long time now, we have been the ghosts of our own lives, haunting the territories of our own desertions. Being transparent to ourselves and to the world is no longer surprising except for the most scatterbrained amongst us. We have become our own shadows, to our own delight. We cherish our very ghostliness and are cherished by it too. Any attempt to try to escape from this condition only resulted in going deeper into it. We are the prisoners of this quicksand logic. Our only means of action is to get deeper and deeper into it. The only progress we can make is becoming even more transparent and yearning after what we are subjected to.”
A passes the sheet to B.
B “ This is our only will. Our willing intoxication to the world…
B stops reading and slides the sheet so she can read the next line through the slits of her mask.
B … which is around us. The world which is around us. We won’t be able to escape from those times unless we …
B stops reading and slides the sheet so she can read the next line through the slits of her mask.
B … have been totally soaked into it so that it won’t possibly…
B stops reading and slides the sheet so she can read the next line through the slits of her mask.
B possibly..”
B tries to decipher the next line and then gives up reading, lowering the sheet.
B It’s no use, I don’t…
B taking her mask off.
B Can’t do it, can’t see anything, the slits are not in front of my eyes and… it’s so stupid to read with a mask, either we read or we wear masks, but if we wear masks, then we don’t read a text because… because, well simply because you can’t read a text and wear a mask, period.
E shrugs or makes any sign of disapproval.
B reacts to E’s gesture as E has a big-eyed mask, like the mask of Scream for example.
B It’s all right for you, maybe, with your big-eyed mask, maybe you can read with your mask on, but I have only slits to see through, and I can only see one line at a time, so I have to stop at every line to slide the sheet one notch up because obviously I cannot anticipate on the next line, so I have to stop reading at the end of each line, and honestly I’m sorry but I just can’t do it. When you wear a mask, you have to memorize the text first, so that you can look up at the camera as you say the text and then, yes, it makes sense to film and wear masks. Plus I don’t see why we have decided to wear masks in the first place, whose idea was it?
( A takes off his mask)
( E takes off his mask)
A We all voted.
B I didn’t vote, I’m sorry, but I did not vote.
E You were away when we voted.
B So what? So I am away and I don’t vote?
D takes off his mask.
A To tell you the truth, that’s the idea, yes.
B Great, nice idea of democracy.
