The Ear of Dionysius by Patrick McHugh
Premiere 3. february 2006
HAU Berlin
directed by: Ingrun Aran & Patrick McHugh
In the early hours of a winter morning in Berlin, an elderly woman and her middle-aged male companion seek shelter from the rain inside a high-rise modernist office building in Potsdamer Platz. After getting lost, they stumble upon a dimly lit lobby on an upper floor, where a bored security guard takes pity on the couple and allows them to rest for a while.
It soon becomes apparent that there is more to the two strangers’ story than a momentary reprieve from the weather as the security guard is drawn into the old woman’s web of wild fantasies and conspiracy theories concerning high-frequency sound experiments and a large electronic billboard that wraps the façade of the building next door. The old woman’s companion, a mysterious figure dressed in a shapeless grey tracksuit, acts as a sort of disembodied technical reference guide, giving credibility to the old woman’s speculations in the form of recited conversations and quasi-scientific texts. When the security guard carelessly mentions his own theories about the strange late night activities that take place in the adjacent offices and the significance of his task of monitoring the billboard next door, the couple make him a proposal he can’t refuse…
production: Patrick McHugh & Ingrun Aran – with: Shaun Lawton, Victoria Pickett, Michael Putschli – music: Kevin McHugh – camera: Patrick McHugh