Experience the profound solitude of a woman's evening routine in Franz Xaver Kroetz's landmark play. As her favorite radio program fills the silence, her actions reveal a deep yearning for connection. This masterpiece of modern theatre transforms the mundane into a powerful exploration of isolation and the human condition.
Request sa Radyo (Wunschkonzert / Request Program) is Franz Xaver Kroetz's landmark theatrical piece that captures the poignant solitude of a woman through her meticulous evening routine. As she navigates her quiet, solitary life, her actions and her favorite radio program reveal the profound loneliness and yearning for connection that lie beneath. This masterpiece of modern theatre transforms the mundane into a powerful exploration of isolation and the human condition and leaves you contemplating the depths of solitude long after the curtain falls....
The Philippine premiere will have a strictly limited engagement with 20 performances and will begin on October 10, 2024 until October 20, 2024 at the Samsung Performing Arts Theatre in Makati City, the Philippines. Lea Salonga and Dolly De Leon will perform the solo piece in scheduled alternating performances.
The play is the coming together of some of the country’s (and world’s) bests. All multi-awarded and all considered sources of Philippine pride, this project delves on their vision and dedication in bringing the powerful and compelling narrative to the Philippine audience.
Co-produced, stage and costume designed by Tony Award-winning creative visionary Clint Ramos, this revolutionary piece of modern theatre aims to transform the mundane into a powerful exploration of isolation and the human condition. Ramos describes it as a hybrid of theater and performance art.
Ramos, the genius behind Eclipsed, Once on this Island, and the groundbreaking all-Filipino ensemble Here Lies Love, just to name a few, has garnered over 300 production credits to his name in Broadway and the West End, not to mention six Tony nominations. In Request sa Radyo, Ramos’ first work in his home country in over a decade, he attempts a never-been-done-in-the-Philippines immersive stage design that deepens the visceral connection between the audience and the play’s protagonist. Ramos will be completely transforming the 1,500-seater Samsung Arts Theater. Each performance will only have a maximum capacity of 400.
This production also sees the return of Bobby Garcia in the Philippine theater scene. After a four-year absence, Tony-nominated producer and director Garcia completes Request sa Radyo’s creative dream team. Best known for founding the prolific stage company Atlantis Productions and Atlantis Theatricals, Garcia’s last work in Manila, The Band’s Visit, delved into the realm of isolation and need for human connection. That production was halted due to the pandemic. He views it as fate that his first work back home echoes similar themes, proving the prevalence and pervasiveness of loneliness. In 2023, the World Health Organization declared loneliness as the next global epidemic. Read More
October 10 - 20, 2024.
Samsung Performing Arts Theatre, Makati City.
Don't miss this opportunity to witness a theatrical masterpiece.
Born in Munich, West Germany in 1946, Franz Xaver Kroetz grew up in Bavaria and worked as an actor during the sixties, taking minor roles in small theaters. The only child of a housewife and a civil servant, he joined alternative theater companies such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Antitheater as a result of doing poorly in highschool and unable to join mainstream theater. With experience as a day-laborer, Kroetz joined the German Communist Party in 1972 with a radical political mindset which stirred up issues with publishing houses soon after....
His plays tend to focus on the poor and plain people of West Germany, portraying the socio-political issues that the working class face.Aside from Request Concert, his roster of social realism dramas include The Nest, highlighting the compromises and sacrifices employees face, Through The Leaves, regarding a failed love affair between a butcher and factory worker, and Tom Fool, showcasing the family of an insecure line worker.
The social and emotional resonance of Kroetz’s writing have established his plays as frequently produced spectacles and food for literary studies. The 2016 staging of Request Concert at New York’s BAM Next Wave festival was named a “NYTimes Critics Pick” by Elisabeth Vincentelli— “both sophisticated in its design and performance, and simple in what it tells us — yet that simplicity doesn’t make the show any less devastating”. Read more
Ayala Land, Bobby Garcia, Clint Ramos, John B. Echauz & Joanna Silayan - Echauz
with
