The theater play was initially developed in 2019 as part of the "Stories for The Future Initiative" by Gloria Benedikt and Martin Puchner within the IIASA Science and Art project. The climate scientist Fabian Wagner worked together with the playwright and co-director of the pioneering Brooklyn-based Superhero Clubhouse eco-theater, Lanxing Fu. Eco-Theater is a movement of artists that strives to create science-based work in the context of our new climate reality toward a collective goal of environmental justice. In the play, past, present, and future exist in one space as four generations of a family spanning 1950 to 2050 gather around a table to share an absurd, abundant, limitless feast. The story traverses a century of humans’ changing relationship to resources and shifting ideas of what it means to have children. Piece of Cake (Ein Stück vom Kuchen) premiered on October 6, 2023, in German, with English subtitles, at the MuTh Concert Hall in Vienna. 

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TEXT 

Lanxing Fu

 

SCIENTIFIC ADVISOR

Fabian Wagner

 

DIRECTED BY

Gloria Benedikt 

 

CAST

 

ONE AND ONLY, a parent (born 1925)                          Raphael Macho

TWO OF A KIND, the other parent (born 1929)            Barca Baxant

THREE’S COMPANY, a child (born 1958)                       Felix Frank

FOUR-PART HARMONY, another child (born 1965)      Katharina-Maria Franzel

FIVE AND DIME, a child’s child (born 1984)                  Victoria Beck

SIX FEET UNDER, a child’s child’s child (born 2018)     Theresa Guggenberger

SEVEN CARD STUD, a possible child                              Robert Weithas

 

MUSIC

Wonderful World (instrumental version)

by Valerie Kerr

 

Your Ancestor (2nd verse)

written and performed by Nynke Laverman

Video artist: Douwe Dijkstra

 

VIDEO EDITING

Patrick Zadrobilek