There are many blank spots in the annals of Austrian drama. They represent what was forgotten, suppressed or denounced in the past, for all sorts of reasons. A great proportion of Austrian theatrical texts no longer exist today – not in our collective memory, not in our canon, not on our stages. And yet, many of these forgotten texts have survived underground, like covert splinter groups in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to step into the light. That moment is now! Gathered under the title of Forgotten Plays, the Salzburg Festival has curated an eye-catchingly exciting selection of Austrian drama to take us beyond familiar ground and outside the mainstream.

The Mozarteum will undergo a transformation, with every part of the building becoming a frantically playful archive for two days. Echoes will be heard resonating from the halls, corridors and every other room, as well as from the balconies and galleries. Echoes of texts from three centuries. Angry voices, longing voices, convincing voices. They will flock together from different eras, from different worlds, and eagerly engage in conversation. There is plenty for these voices to talk about: they will tell their tales of escape and exile, as well as recounting the political upheaval and shattered illusions to which they bear witness. They will dive into strange realities and marvel at the quirks of fate that befell them and others.

What else is an ‘archive’ if not an overcrowded waiting room where forgotten voices excitedly talk over one another? Here they pass their time, until one of them is suddenly called upon.

The ring of a bell. An echo. A distant chime. Lights. More and more lights. Shedding light into the dark. A radiant stream of time, as dark times stream by. Battery problems. On the left, something left behind. Pause for a moment. Take in a text. Why not read something from beginning to end again? Sit down. Really get into it. Do a sit-in with the text. Immerse yourself. Just for a few hours. Or watch instead, in our theatre of textual dissection. Where experts anatomize the inanimate bodies of text. Where the public is invited to weigh up long-lost material.

An encounter with Austrian voices. Speaking to us from exile. From a surrealistic youth. Revealing dreams in the provinces and messages of love from a forgotten future. Not ending in the here and now – that’s quite essential. Giving those forgotten in the future a seat at the table, watching them take flight. Staged readings. Dialectical performances. Exhilarating installations. People, texts, sensations.

And at the end: a decentralized archive. Something to take away. For home.

Our interest lies not in what is close at hand, but in what resonates from afar. A full day of Forgotten Plays at the Salzburg Festival.

Simon Strauß & Zino Wey

Translation: Sebastian Smallshaw