GILGAMESH
4000-year-old Sumerian epos, Guber stone quarry, Alpnach, Switzerland, 1995

Design and direction: Hugo Schaer and Thomas Birve
Text: Flavio Steimann
Narrator: Otto Edelman
Singing: Sara Maurer
Lighting: Rolf Derrer
Production: Peter Imgrueth

In the bleak and barren quarry the sediments of millions of years are visible. Lost in them, man with his brief existence, his transience. In the centre of the imposing stone arena stands Schaer/Birves’ “Gilgamesh – Sculpture”, as if grown out of the rock. An actor and a singer tell the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu and their unsuccessful quest for immortality.

“...rolling or deliberately thrown stones, echoes that bounce off the unyielding wall, the dull thuds of a tom-tom, even a distant alphorn air “play along”, turn the space below the star-studded sky into sound. And the barely expected happens: even without much outward action the story of the tyrannical king of Uruk, skilfully distilled into a series of 12 scenes, jumps across the epochs with ease. It turns into our own story” Fritz Schaub, NZZ