Berries of Wrath
A SOCIO-GEOGRAPHIC ROAD TRIP THROUGH EUROPE
Large groups of people live, sleep, eat and work under the white plastic sea that covers endless fields in southern Europe. These are a faceless underclass, living in a parallel, make-shift society without electricity and with failing running water. They dream of a better life and work for a daily wage of 20€.
They make sure our supermarkets are full of beautiful, freshly picked berries that taste of summer and sunshine.
fix+foxy puts a face to the berry pickers and invites the audience to take a journey from the Spanish fields to the tables in northern Europe.
The performance is supported by Danish Arts Foundation, Bikuben Foundation, Nordic Culture Fund, William Demant Foundation and Beckett-Foundation.
BERRIES OF WRATH ran from May 2nd – June 1st 2024 at Teater Republique in Copenhagen.
English subtitles on May 10th, 15th, 21st, 30th, 31st and June 1st.
★★★★
“Danish middle-class minors end up pregnant and smothered in strawberries”
Berlingske
“Docu-theatre veteran, Tue Biering, stages heavily exploited migrant workers. Making it impossible to turn a blind eye, as a consumer of theatre – and strawberries”
Politiken
★★★★
“Berries of Wrath is a powerful experience that leaves a lasting impression”
Kulturbunkeren
“Grimy and raw humiliation theatre eradicates any cravings for strawberries”
Information
“With Berries of Wrath our consumer dilemmas become very tangible”
POV International
”fix+foxys Berries of Wrath is documentary theatre, that shakes it’s audience with it’s exposure of modern slavery in broad daylight – and blows us away with it’s strong artistic expression.”
Peripeti
Director and playwright Tue Biering
Co director Carlota Berzal
Set and costume designer Johan Kølkjær
Lighting designer Balder Nørskov
Sound designer Daniel Fogh
Props designer Josefine E. Larsen
Dramaturg Aljoscha Begrich, Tanja Diers
Camera Marie Munkner
Cast Fatima Ez Zohayryed Dryouch, Laila Baomar Khouibi, Mustapha Hertil Oufkir, Manuel Milla Marchal, Luna Bredde, Martha Hansted Lohmann-Dunn, Ester Lundby Almlund, Elna Marie Bach Larsen, Kajsa Østergaard, Augusta Rønsborg, Wilma Melkersen Kalvåg, Elin Marie Schoeneborn, Caius Popa, Tiberiu Bosancu.
Backstage:
All pictures display rehearsal scenes, production work, and backstage fun.
Illustrations from the rehearsal period:
A different kind of rehearsal note, that each show a different day. To show what happened on stage and as well as backstage.
Illustrations made by Katinka Hurvig Møller
Quotes from the press
”In an unpleasant, distorted way, the children on stage also remind us of the children that the migrant women – for most berry pickers are women – have left behind at home.”
”…the embedding of the audience is so integral to the play’s dramaturgy and ongoing structure. This means that we as the audience constantly have to adjust our own position, there is nothing wrong, and we cannot stay outside, but also: there is not a clear audience position established in this room. Part of the play’s magic and fascinating power, is precisely how scenography and dramaturgy are embedded in to each other, as the play is physically built before our eyes, whilst we are being led through an inevitable course of action of intensified exploitation.”
”… The performance demonstrates how all the social strata that contribute to the exploitation are also under pressure”
”A worker secretly reports from the back seat of half a car about the wretched conditions. During this scene, the live camera gets a concrete function in the story as a marker. All this is documented and transmitted, which means, that we can know about it – if we really want to.”
”It’s absolutely crazy that this dry, albeit intrusive political theme can become so present and relevant in a staging, where all the human costs are being shown. Without it becoming sentimental, but simply appearing as an essential dimension of the economic and global reality.”
”With Berries of Wrath, theatre director Tue Biering has once again created intense and perceptive documentary theatre about some of the world’s biggest inequalities.”
”He makes us feel compassionate – and he makes us shudder. The way strong tragedy theatre manages to do it.”
”Berries of Wrath is humiliation-theatre without a filter.”
”The mud of despondency and the eternal downpour of spring are depicted by Daniel Fogh’s wild sound design, where the storm and the burning heat are constantly and sarcastically being contrasted by the tones of a smooth Spanish guitar. ”
”The strawberries nickname is ‘the red gold’. But judging by the strawberries of this play, it should probably rather be called ‘the blood-red gold’. Smack!”