ELSA AND JOY
The Love of a Big Cat to a Human Female
Audio Piece by Susanne Ayoub
Elsa and Joy – Studio Script
with Roman Blumenschein, Till Firit, Silvia Meisterle, Katharina Stemberger and Raphael Sas
Sound Engineering Robert Pavlecka
Director Susanne Ayoub
Editor Elisabeth Stratka
The story begins in 1937. Joy Adamson, born Friederike Gessner in Troppau in Old Austria, now Opava in the Czech Republic, sets off from Vienna on an unheard of adventure. She wants to research and draw the flora of Kenya. Joy finds her new home in Africa. A few years later she is considered one of the best flower painters of the world.
Sound Engineer Pavlecka + Editor StratkaKatharina Stemberger is JoySilvia Meisterle the other tellerAyoub with Roman Blumenschein who tells part of the storyTil Firit is George Adamson
BoranPokotSamburuHibiskus
Her work is shown in London and wins awards. As a result, she was commissioned by Kenya’s (colonial) government to represent the various tribes of Kenya in their costumes and rituals. These approximately 700 portraits now make a significant contribution to Kenya’s cultural history and are partly exhibited in the Nairobi National Museum. But that’s not Joy’s only talent…
Alfred Kubin – the Magician of Zwickledt
An audio piece by Susanne Ayoub
With: Roman Blumenschein, Martina Ebm, Pippa Galli and Karl Markovics
Sound Engineering: Robert Pavlecka
Directed by Susanne Ayoub
Edited by Claudia Gschweitl
Alfred Kubin, The MagicianOn this typewriter Alfed Kubin wrote his only novel “The other side”
The setting is a medieval estate on the Bavarian border. This is where the artist Alfred Kubin spent more than half a century until his death in 1959, and where a large part of his oeuvre came into being, including his only novel, which he illustrated himself.
Many famous contemporaries like Stefan Zweig and Hermann Hesse admired “Die andere Seite” (The Other Side) and interpreted it as a visionary text. Kubin and Kafka knew each other in Prague, and their works bear kindred traits. Kubin was convinced of his contacts with the Beyond, and when people are asked about their memories, everyone has an anecdote to contribute, from a hailstorm out of a clear blue sky to conjuring spirits during a thunderstorm. Kubin wanted to be reborn as a snake, so that he could sneak inconspicuously around the house and garden. There are stories about that as well.
ALFRED KUBIN’S NEIGHBOR: MITZI SCHNEIDER
Mitzi Schneider
Maria Süss, “Mitzi Schneider,” who celebrated her 95th birthday on June 9th, knew Alfred Kubin personally. For many years her uncle sewed for the artist, who was considered an eccentric because he tipped his hat to children while out walking and gave them sweets and small pictures. Back home, the pictures got burned in the stove, those “scribbles,” as the people in the village called them. “Folks didn’t understand ‘em,” Mitzi tells me. After Kubin’s death, when they found out what his pictures were worth, they were sorry they’d done it.
Photo of Cilli Lindinger by Peter Putz, 1980
ALFRED KUBIN’S HOUSEKEEPER CILLI
Cilli Lindinger was associated with Kubin for many years. After the death of his wife Hedwig, he proposed marriage to her, but she declined. She took care of him at home until his death, and for a long time after that she guided visitors through the Kubin Museum. Numerous stories about Kubin have been passed on by Cilli. Many of them concern his dealings with spirits, demons, and even the Devil. During thunderstorms, he walked out in his garden and took up contact with the Beyond. Cilli warned him and was afraid for him. In vain. But she did have one weapon against his obsession: she prayed, often a hundred Lord’s Prayers a day.
with Gerti Drassl + Silvia Meisterle + Michael Dangl + Jörg Stelling
Sound engineering by Elmar Peinelt and Jakob Kainz
Edited by Elisabeth Stratka
A production of the ORF Feature Department, 2022
Photo by Michael HorowitzThe book cover of Lotte Profohs‘s magnum opus, the picture cycle “Erbarmt euch der Frauen“ (Take Pity on Women).
About the play The Viennese artist couple Lotte Profohs and Leherb, idolized and admired in the 1960s and 70s, established their success with performances that were scandlous at the time. Lotte’s international career began early when she invented Leherb and herself as fictional characters, remaining on the sidelines as an artist while being omnipresent as a muse and a model. It was a young love that lasted a lifetime, even if it was not a happy relationship. Lotte attempted suicide several times. In middle age she withdrew from public view. Leherb, on the other hand, continued to appear in baroque costumes trimmed with live mice and a stuffed pigeon, until he died in 1997 at age 64. Their drug-addicted son Anselm followed him four years later. Lotte Profohs outlived both of them, surrounded by her dove Arabella and the mice Paul and Pierre, until 2012.
A Congenial Collaboration Two jointly produced audio recordings present a special aspect of the couple’s congenial collaboration. Autodafé, a sort of surreal audio play with Boy Gobert as narrator, and Irre Gut (Insanely Good), with lyrics written and sung by both artists and musical arrangements by Toni Stricker, remain a revealing and refreshing listening experience to this day.
“Irre Gut” LP“Autodafé” LP
Gerti Drassl in front of Leherb’s controversial monumental work, the faience panels in the foyer of the old Vienna University of Economics.Silvia MeisterleAyoub in the studio with sound engineer Elmar PeineltMichael DanglJörg StellingSound engineer Elmar PeineltEditor Elisabeth Stratka
“I have to admit, I no longer know why I’m living here. I have to admit, life here is like it is everywhere: someday someone will get married, someone will get a professorship, someone will hang themselves, end up in a mental hospital. Everything will be like everywhere. No Colosseum, no Capitol is going to help you get past it.”
(Ingeborg Bachmann)
Ingeborg Bachmann Rome, Café Greco, 1973. Photo Karl Kofler
