Ophelia Comes to Brooklyn (2017)
How do you get to know somebody through what they have left behind? Ophelia Comes to Brooklyn is a theatre script that Antje Katcher wrote in 1982. In 1967, when she was 20 years old, she emigrated from a small German town to New York City. When she died in 2014, she left an inheritance for her niece, Katja Dreyer, which included letters, poems, objects, a group of friends… all fragments of an unwritten biography.
Now, by staging Ophelia Comes to Brooklyn, three actors are attempting to decipher the story – the play and Antje’s life itself. Together, you will travel across time and space: Germany in the fifties, Russia in the sixties, New York in the seventies. You will experience poetry readings, feminist protests, and a commemoration. How did Antje reinvent herself in the New World?
idea & concept Katja Dreyer | performance & creation Katja Dreyer, Davis Freeman, Dolores Hulan | text Katja Dreyer, Davis Freeman, Antje Katcher | light design Hans Mejer | sound design Chris Umney | space, advice, collage Britt Hatzius | dramaturgy Esther Severi (Kaaitheater) | paintings Bernard van Eeghem | photography Antje Katcher | production Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek | co-production C-Takt, Dommelhof & Buda | support Flemish Community & Flemish Community Commission| thanks to Paul Genega, Susan Landau, Jackie Myer, Canio's Books Sag Harbour, Rev Katrina Foster, Willem de Wolf
“In Ophelia Comes to Brooklyn, Brussels artist Katja Dreyer attempts to reconstruct the turbulent life of her late aunt based on letters, poems, and testimonies. The result is a jigsaw puzzle of a biography that transports us from Germany in the 1950s to Russia and on to New York in the 1970s. But can you ever really get to know someone based on what they left behind?.”
— Bruzz
