Asia Premiere 亞洲首演

Life? or Theatre? is the name that Berlin‑born Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon gave to a sequence of nearly 800 gouaches accompanied by text and musical references that she produced between 1940 and 1942.
Before her deportation to Auschwitz at age 26, she handed the work to a local physician, with the message: "Take good care of this… it is my whole life.“Charlotte chronicled the inner life of a young woman coming of age during the rise of Nazism and under the shadow of family suicides.

Life?or Theatre? has been adapted for the stage and screen, transformed into opera, ballet, artwork, puppetry and literature. However, it has yet to be fully realized as a "singspiel," the performance style Charlotte envisioned.
Charlotte: A Tri-Coloured Play with Music is a multi-national collaboration with a core creative team from Canada, UK, and Czech Republic, plus seven actor-singers and four musician-performers. The essential quality of our “singspiel” is the total synchronicity of word, image, and music.

This production is based on‘Leben oder Theater ?, einSingespiel’ ( Life or Theatre ? )  a dramatized autobiography in 796 gouaches by Charlotte Salomon ( Berlin 1917- Auschwitz 1943). ‘Lebenoder Theater, einSingespiel’ by Charlotte Salomon is part of the collection of the Jewish Historical Museum Amsterdam, www.jhm.nl/collection/specials/charlotte-salomon

© Charlotte Salomon Foundation, Amsterdam
Charlotte Salomon®

夏綠蒂．所羅門（Charlotte Salomon），一位平凡的猶太裔年輕女畫家。二戰期間，在絕望和暴力陰影進逼之下，她日夜不輟畫下一生遭遇。近八百幅僅以紅黃藍三原色構成的畫作，每一幅都配有完整的人物對白，並指定合適的音樂，甚至以透明膠片重疊拉出另一維度的想像圖說。
被命名為《人生？如戲？》的創作翱翔在多重的藝術形式中，是史無前例的圖像式劇本小說。

2017年是夏綠蒂出生一百週年，有「劇場設計教母」之稱的英國導演暨設計師潘蜜拉．霍爾（Pamela Howard），以紅黃藍三原色作為主要的空間設計元素，
結合加拿大及捷克的重量級詞曲創作者、歌者演員、樂手，聯手在舞台上實現夏綠蒂腦中交織的真實歷史和虛構幻想，向這位在生命一隅掙扎發聲的堅強女子致意。 

Collaborators 製作團隊

Director/ Scenographer: Pamela Howard (UK)
Librettist: AlonNashman(Canada)
Composer: AlešBřezina (Czech Republic)
With a company of 7 actor-singers and 4 musicians

A Theaturtle production; developed with the support of Canadian Stage, Toronto (Matthew Jocelyn Artistic and General Director, Su Hutchinson, Managing Director), and with a residency at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, Kingston (Tricia Baldwin, Director). www.theaturtle.com/charlotte.html

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Photo Credit: © Charlotte Salomon Foundation, Amsterdam ｜ Charlotte Salomon®