Paulus Manker
Encyclopedia
Paulus Manker is an Austria
n film director
and actor
, as well as an author and screenplay writer.
Manker is considered one of the most maverick German-speaking actors, and polarizes public opinion like scarcely no other. He is perceived as a "staggering all-round talent on the Austrian cultural scene."
in Vienna
, studying acting and directing. Manker made his film debut in Lemminge (Lemmings) (dir. Michael Haneke
) in 1979.
Manker's initial engagements while still at drama school took him to the Viennese Burgtheater
(1979, Arthur Schnitzler
's Comedy of Seduction with set design by Hans Hollein
and costumes by Karl Lagerfeld
), then to the Vienna Festival
(1980, The Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus
), and on to participation in the "co-determination model" at the Schauspielhaus Frankfurt (1980/81), to the Thalia Theater
in Hamburg (1982, Jean Genet
's Deathwatch
and also to the Residenztheater in Munich, where in 1983 he first worked with director Peter Zadek
(Henrik Ibsen
's The Master Builder
with Barbara Sukowa
), where he became a long-term member of Zadek's famous ensemble.
As a film actor, Manker first appeared in Lemmings in 1979 (directed by Michael Haneke
). Then followed Exit – Don't Panic (1980) and The Locked-Out (1982, based on the novel by Elfriede Jelinek
), The Power of Emotions by Alexander Kluge
(1983) and Who was Edgar Allan? (1984, also directed by Michael Haneke), as well as Luc Bondy
's The Distant Land (1987), alongside Michel Piccoli.
In 1986, Peter Zadek
invited Manker to join the famous ensemble at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, of which he was a member from 1986 to 1989. Here, for the first time, he played on stage the leading role of anti-Semitic Jewish philosopher Otto Weininger
in the play Weininger's Last Night by Joshua Sobol, which caused much furore. After that, he was Octavius Caesar in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
with Ulrich Tukur
, Lindekuh in Frank Wedekind
's Musik (Music) with Susanne Lothar
, and slave trader Casti-Piani in Peter Zadek's legendary staging of Frank Wedekind's Lulu.
Manker first worked as a film director in 1985, and his film Schmutz (Dirt) premiered at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival
in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. The film received several awards at other festivals, and was turned into a novel by Thorsten Becker
. In 1988 there followed Weininger's Last Night, in 1992 The Eye of the Typhoon with German rock band Einstürzende Neubauten
, in 1995 The Moor's Head, based on a screenplay by Michael Haneke
with Gert Voss in his first film role, and Angela Winkler
, then in 1996 the documentary film Hans Hollein
– Everything is Architecture plus various short films including, in 2004, the portrait of his 80-year-old mother, actress Hilde Sochor.
"As a director, Manker experiments with psycho shockers (Dirt, Weininger's Last Night) and draws the audience into his aggressive multimedia theatre dramas. Manker's general theme is the creeping insanity of a society to which he holds up a distorting mirror."
Manker first worked as a director at the Vienna Volkstheater, with Weiningers Nacht (Weininger's Last Night) by Joshua Sobol, in which he himself also played the leading role, and which became his most famous role. The performance became Manker's greatest triumph to date, and he himself subsequently turned the play into a film. "One rarely comes across such a sensuously and intellectually exciting, enlightening, sensational film." (Simone Mahrenholz, Der Tagesspiegel)
In 1990, Manker returned to the Viennese Burgtheater under Claus Peymann, and took the role of Carlos in Peymann's production of Goethe's Clavigo (with Ulrich Mühe
as Clavigo). He was also Bassanio in Peter Zadek's production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
(with Gert Voss as Shylock and Eva Mattes
as Portia), and Pozzo in Samuel Beckett
's Waiting for Godot
). In 1993, he staged Franz Molnar's Liliom
at the Burgtheater, and in 1996 Bertolt Brecht
's Threepenny Opera (with costumes by Vivienne Westwood
).
Manker's performance as Shakespeare's Richard III
(1997), staged by Peter Zadek at the Münchner Kammerspiele, generated most heated discussions, where conflict arose with the theatre and its director Dieter Dorn
, whereupon the production was cancelled despite its huge success with the public. "A huge success is being dropped here, one which could have been played for years, merely out of pusillanimity." (Peter Zadek)
In 1996, Manker and Israeli writer Joshua Sobol, who became his most important artistic partner, created Alma - Widow of the four Arts
at the former Sanatorium Purkersdorf
, a simultaneous drama about artists' muse Alma Mahler-Werfel and her men, which became a cult play and has since been played every year at a different venue, having already crossed three continents and had over 400 performances in Vienna, Venice, Lisbon, Los Angeles, Berlin, Jerusalem and Prague. The production involves the audience interactively in the creation of their own theatrical experience, and they become "companions of the figures journeying through the travel-drama, themselves selecting the events, the path and the person whom they follow, thereby constructing, destroying and resurrecting their own version of the polydrama". Between 1997 and 1999, the play was filmed under the title Alma – Widow of the 4 Arts as a 3-part TV film. In the production, produced by Manker himself, Manker also has the role of the expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka
.
In 2000, with the cyber-show F@lco at the Viennese Ronacher Theatre, Manker and Sobol created a multimedia musical about the pop star Falco
. Then in 2003, continuing the collaboration with Sobol, an invitation came from Tel Aviv to stage at the Cameri Theatre the premiere of Sobol's iWitness, the story of Franz Jägerstätter
, who refused to enter military service and was hanged by the Nazis, a parallel to the soldiers of the Israeli army who refused to serve in the Occupied Territories. The production made the young Itay Tiran
a star.
Manker played the suicidal organist in Joseph Vilsmaier
's Brother of Sleep
(1994), as well as playing in Michael Haneke
's The Castle (1998) and in Code Unknown
with Juliette Binoche
(1999). He also performed in Michael Glawogger
's film Slumming, a 2006 entry in the Berlin Film Festival competition section; in this film, with a "hyperplastic presence", Manker portrays homeless alcoholic Franz Kallmann in the style of a poète maudit, "truly setting his role on fire" (ARTE
).
Paulus Manker engaged in more theatre work with Luc Bondy
(Ödön von Horvath
's Figaro Gets a Divorce, 1998), with Christoph Schlingensief
(Foreigners Out! Schlingensief's Container, 2000) and on repeated occasions with Peter Zadek (White Rabbit
in Alice in Wonderland, 1996, Polonius
in Hamlet
, with Angela Winkler
and Otto Sander
, Hamburg, 2000), The Jew of Malta
(2001) as well as in plays by Botho Strauss.
In 2010 Manker appeared in the Salzburg Festival
as Theseus
in the acclaimed production of Jean Racine
's Phèdre
, playing alongside Sunnyi Melles
. In the same year, he published a comprehensive book about his father, film director, set designer and theatre director Gustav Manker.
In 2010, Manker was awarded the prestigious Nestroy Audience Award.
In 1995, together with Niklas Frank, they adapted Frank's reckoning with his father Hans Frank
, Hitler's governor-general in Poland. At the Theater an der Wien
in Vienna, the audience was turned on a revolving stage from scene to scene, and with the aid of hydraulics, even taken down below stage. They called it a "horror train trip" and used film clips and documents from Frank's private family album.
In 1996, Manker and Sobol created their most successful project to date: Alma – Widow of the four Arts
, an interactive drama about Alma Mahler-Werfel, in which over 50 scenes were played simultaneously in the rooms of the art-deco Sanatorium Purkersdorf
outside Vienna. The show's 16-year history to date has taken the performance of Alma on tour to the various cities in which her life unfolded: Venice (2002), Lisbon (2003), Los Angeles (2004), Petronell near Vienna (2005), Berlin (2006), to Semmering in 2007, Jerusalem in 2009, from 2008 to 2010 to Vienna, and in 2011 in Prague.
In 2000 Sobol and Manker created a multimedia spectacle at the Viennese Ronacher Theatre: F@lco - A Cyber Show, about Austrian rock star Falco, which was presented on a stage built out into the auditorium in an @ shape in the form of a rock concert with laser, 3D animation and water screen, where the audience was directly involved and could smoke, eat and drink and join in the dancing. By way of contrast, the "remote" audience stood in the boxes, from where they could see both the play and the participating audience.
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, as well as an author and screenplay writer.
Manker is considered one of the most maverick German-speaking actors, and polarizes public opinion like scarcely no other. He is perceived as a "staggering all-round talent on the Austrian cultural scene."
Life
Manker is the son of actress Hilde Sochor and theatre director Gustav Manker. He trained at the Max Reinhardt Drama SchoolMax Reinhardt Seminar
The Max Reinhardt Seminar is the School of Drama at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria. It is located in the Palais Cumberland, Penzingerstraße 9, in Vienna's 14th district - History :...
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, studying acting and directing. Manker made his film debut in Lemminge (Lemmings) (dir. Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
) in 1979.
Manker's initial engagements while still at drama school took him to the Viennese Burgtheater
Burgtheater
The Burgtheater , originally known as K.K. Theater an der Burg, then until 1918 as the K.K. Hofburgtheater, is the Austrian National Theatre in Vienna and one of the most important German language theatres in the world.The Burgtheater was created in 1741 and has become known as "die Burg" by the...
(1979, Arthur Schnitzler
Arthur Schnitzler
Dr. Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.- Biography :Arthur Schnitzler, son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter , was born in Praterstraße 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian...
's Comedy of Seduction with set design by Hans Hollein
Hans Hollein
Hans Hollein, is an Austrian architect and designer.Hollein achieved a diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1956, then attended the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1959 and the University of California, Berkeley in 1960...
and costumes by Karl Lagerfeld
Karl Lagerfeld
Karl Lagerfeld is a German fashion designer, artist and photographer based in Paris. He has collaborated on a variety of fashion and art related projects, most notably as head designer and creative director for the fashion house Chanel...
), then to the Vienna Festival
Vienna Festival
The Wiener Festwochen is a cultural festival in Vienna that takes place every year for five or six weeks in May and June.The Wiener Festwochen was established in 1951, when Vienna was still occupied by the four Allies...
(1980, The Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian...
), and on to participation in the "co-determination model" at the Schauspielhaus Frankfurt (1980/81), to the Thalia Theater
Thalia Theater (Hamburg)
The Thalia Theater is one of the three state-owned theatres in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded in 1843 by Charles Maurice Schwartzenberger and named after the muse Thalia...
in Hamburg (1982, Jean Genet
Jean Genet
Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...
's Deathwatch
Deathwatch (play)
Deathwatch is a play written by Jean Genet in 1947, performed for the first time in Paris at the Théâtre des Mathurins in February 1949 under the direction of Jean Marchat.-Plot:...
and also to the Residenztheater in Munich, where in 1983 he first worked with director Peter Zadek
Peter Zadek
Peter Zadek was a German theatre and film director, play translator and screenwriter and is regarded as one of the greatest directors in German-speaking theater. He was the head of the Schauspielhaus Bochum, Bochum , the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg and the Berliner Ensemble from 1992 to 1996...
(Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
's The Master Builder
The Master Builder
The Master Builder is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was first published in December 1892 and is regarded as one of Ibsen's most significant and revealing works.-Performance:...
with Barbara Sukowa
Barbara Sukowa
Barbara Sukowa is a German theatre and film actress.- Work :Sukowa's stage debut was in Berlin in 1971, in a production of Peter Handke's Der Ritt über den Bodensee. Günter Beelitz invited her to join the ensemble of the Darmstädter National Theatre in the same year...
), where he became a long-term member of Zadek's famous ensemble.
As a film actor, Manker first appeared in Lemmings in 1979 (directed by Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
). Then followed Exit – Don't Panic (1980) and The Locked-Out (1982, based on the novel by Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004 for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."-...
), The Power of Emotions by Alexander Kluge
Alexander Kluge
Alexander Kluge is an author and film director.-Early life, education and early career:Kluge was born in Halberstadt, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany....
(1983) and Who was Edgar Allan? (1984, also directed by Michael Haneke), as well as Luc Bondy
Luc Bondy
- Biography :Trained in Paris with the theatre teacher Jacques Lecoq, he received a job in 1969 as an assistant at the Hamburg Thalia Theatre. In a surprise, he took over in 1985 after the resignation of Peter Stein at the Schaubühne in Berlin. He also worked as a producer of both plays and operas...
's The Distant Land (1987), alongside Michel Piccoli.
In 1986, Peter Zadek
Peter Zadek
Peter Zadek was a German theatre and film director, play translator and screenwriter and is regarded as one of the greatest directors in German-speaking theater. He was the head of the Schauspielhaus Bochum, Bochum , the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg and the Berliner Ensemble from 1992 to 1996...
invited Manker to join the famous ensemble at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, of which he was a member from 1986 to 1989. Here, for the first time, he played on stage the leading role of anti-Semitic Jewish philosopher Otto Weininger
Otto Weininger
Otto Weininger was an Austrian philosopher. In 1903, he published the book Geschlecht und Charakter , which gained popularity after his suicide at the age of 23...
in the play Weininger's Last Night by Joshua Sobol, which caused much furore. After that, he was Octavius Caesar in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar (play)
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against...
with Ulrich Tukur
Ulrich Tukur
Ulrich Tukur is a German actor and musician.-Biography:Tukur spent his youth near Hanover where he finished his final secondary-school examinations in 1977. He also achieved a high school degree in Boston during an exchange of students where he met his first wife, Amber Wood. With her, he had two...
, Lindekuh in Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
's Musik (Music) with Susanne Lothar
Susanne Lothar
Susanne Lothar is a German actress.Lothar studied at the Schauspiel an der Hochschule für Theater und Musik in Hamburg...
, and slave trader Casti-Piani in Peter Zadek's legendary staging of Frank Wedekind's Lulu.
Manker first worked as a film director in 1985, and his film Schmutz (Dirt) premiered at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. The film received several awards at other festivals, and was turned into a novel by Thorsten Becker
Thorsten Becker
Thorsten Becker is a German footballer, who in 1992 moved from Fortuna Schlangen to SC Paderborn and has played in the club's first-team squad from 2001 to 2009. He helped Paderborn gain promotion to the second level of the Bundesliga in the 2004–05 season.-References:...
. In 1988 there followed Weininger's Last Night, in 1992 The Eye of the Typhoon with German rock band Einstürzende Neubauten
Einstürzende Neubauten
Einstürzende Neubauten is a German post-industrial band, originally from West Berlin, formed in 1980. The group currently comprises Blixa Bargeld , Alexander Hacke , N.U...
, in 1995 The Moor's Head, based on a screenplay by Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
with Gert Voss in his first film role, and Angela Winkler
Angela Winkler
Angela Winkler is a German actress.- Biography :Born in Templin, Winkler trained to be a medical technologist in Stuttgart. Interested in theater, she went to Munich, where she took acting classes with Ernst Fritz Fürbringer...
, then in 1996 the documentary film Hans Hollein
Hans Hollein
Hans Hollein, is an Austrian architect and designer.Hollein achieved a diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1956, then attended the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1959 and the University of California, Berkeley in 1960...
– Everything is Architecture plus various short films including, in 2004, the portrait of his 80-year-old mother, actress Hilde Sochor.
"As a director, Manker experiments with psycho shockers (Dirt, Weininger's Last Night) and draws the audience into his aggressive multimedia theatre dramas. Manker's general theme is the creeping insanity of a society to which he holds up a distorting mirror."
Manker first worked as a director at the Vienna Volkstheater, with Weiningers Nacht (Weininger's Last Night) by Joshua Sobol, in which he himself also played the leading role, and which became his most famous role. The performance became Manker's greatest triumph to date, and he himself subsequently turned the play into a film. "One rarely comes across such a sensuously and intellectually exciting, enlightening, sensational film." (Simone Mahrenholz, Der Tagesspiegel)
In 1990, Manker returned to the Viennese Burgtheater under Claus Peymann, and took the role of Carlos in Peymann's production of Goethe's Clavigo (with Ulrich Mühe
Ulrich Mühe
Friedrich Hans Ulrich Mühe was a German film, television and theatre actor. He played the role of Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in the Oscar-winning film Das Leben der Anderen , for which he received the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Gold, at Germany's most prestigious film...
as Clavigo). He was also Bassanio in Peter Zadek's production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
(with Gert Voss as Shylock and Eva Mattes
Eva Mattes
Eva Mattes is a German-Austrian actress.Mattes appeared in four films directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and A Man Called Eva , as a bearded film director based on the then recently deceased Fassbinder...
as Portia), and Pozzo in Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
's Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
). In 1993, he staged Franz Molnar's Liliom
Liliom
Liliom is a 1909 play by the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár. It was very famous in its own right during the early to mid-20th century, but is best known today as the basis for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel.- Plot :...
at the Burgtheater, and in 1996 Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
's Threepenny Opera (with costumes by Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood
Dame Vivienne Westwood, DBE, RDI is a British fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream.-Early life:...
).
Manker's performance as Shakespeare's Richard III
Richard III (play)
Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...
(1997), staged by Peter Zadek at the Münchner Kammerspiele, generated most heated discussions, where conflict arose with the theatre and its director Dieter Dorn
Dieter Dorn
Dieter Dorn is a German theatre director, also for the opera, the manager of the Münchner Kammerspiele from 1983 to 2001 and now manager of the Bavarian Staatsschauspiel.- Biography :...
, whereupon the production was cancelled despite its huge success with the public. "A huge success is being dropped here, one which could have been played for years, merely out of pusillanimity." (Peter Zadek)
In 1996, Manker and Israeli writer Joshua Sobol, who became his most important artistic partner, created Alma - Widow of the four Arts
Alma (play)
Alma is a play by Israeli writer Joshua Sobol based on the life of Alma Mahler-Werfel. It opened 1996 in Vienna."Alma" is the story of Alma Mahler-Werfel, the famous femme fatale and muse to many geniuses. She was the wife of composer Gustav Mahler, also married to architect Walter Gropius and...
at the former Sanatorium Purkersdorf
Sanatorium Purkersdorf
The Sanatorium Purkersdorf was built as a sanatorium in Purkersdorf, Wien-Umgebung, Lower Austria. It was built in 1904-05 by the architect Josef Hoffmann for the industrialist Victor Zuckerkandl and is an example of the style of the Viennese Secession in architecture.- Sanatorium :Zuckerkandl, the...
, a simultaneous drama about artists' muse Alma Mahler-Werfel and her men, which became a cult play and has since been played every year at a different venue, having already crossed three continents and had over 400 performances in Vienna, Venice, Lisbon, Los Angeles, Berlin, Jerusalem and Prague. The production involves the audience interactively in the creation of their own theatrical experience, and they become "companions of the figures journeying through the travel-drama, themselves selecting the events, the path and the person whom they follow, thereby constructing, destroying and resurrecting their own version of the polydrama". Between 1997 and 1999, the play was filmed under the title Alma – Widow of the 4 Arts as a 3-part TV film. In the production, produced by Manker himself, Manker also has the role of the expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes.-Biography:...
.
In 2000, with the cyber-show F@lco at the Viennese Ronacher Theatre, Manker and Sobol created a multimedia musical about the pop star Falco
Falco (musician)
Johann Hölzel , better known by his stage name Falco, was an Austrian pop and rock musician and rapper. He had several international hits: "Der Kommissar", "Rock Me Amadeus", "Vienna Calling", "Jeanny", "The Sound of Musik", "Coming Home " and posthumously, "Out Of The Dark"...
. Then in 2003, continuing the collaboration with Sobol, an invitation came from Tel Aviv to stage at the Cameri Theatre the premiere of Sobol's iWitness, the story of Franz Jägerstätter
Franz Jägerstätter
Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, O.F.S., was an Austrian conscientious objector during World War II. Jägerstätter was sentenced to death and executed...
, who refused to enter military service and was hanged by the Nazis, a parallel to the soldiers of the Israeli army who refused to serve in the Occupied Territories. The production made the young Itay Tiran
Itay Tiran
Itay Tiran is an Israeli stage and screen actor, known for his position against Israeli settlements and for his roles in Forgiveness , Beaufort , The Debt , Homeland , Lebanon , and The Promise .Tiran is one of the most acclaimed Israeli actors of his day...
a star.
Manker played the suicidal organist in Joseph Vilsmaier
Joseph Vilsmaier
Joseph Vilsmaier is a German film director.-Work:After attending a boarding school near Augsburg, he was trained as a technician to make film cameras and then spent nine years at a music conservatory. Following this he was a member of a jazz group...
's Brother of Sleep
Brother of Sleep
Brother of Sleep is a 1995 German film directed by Joseph Vilsmaier and based on a novel by Austrian writer Robert Schneider. It was chosen as Germany's official submission to the 68th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, but did not manage to receive a nomination....
(1994), as well as playing in Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
's The Castle (1998) and in Code Unknown
Code Unknown
Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys is a 2000 film directed by Michael Haneke. Most of the story occurs in Paris, France, where the fates of several characters intersect and connect...
with Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche is a French actress, artist and dancer. She has appeared in more than 40 feature films, been recipient of numerous international accolades, is a published author and has appeared on stage across the world. Coming from an artistic background, she began taking acting lessons during...
(1999). He also performed in Michael Glawogger
Michael Glawogger
Michael Glawogger is an Austrian film director, screenwriter and cinematographer.From 1981 to 1982 Glawogger studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and then from 1983 to 1989 at the Vienna Film Academy...
's film Slumming, a 2006 entry in the Berlin Film Festival competition section; in this film, with a "hyperplastic presence", Manker portrays homeless alcoholic Franz Kallmann in the style of a poète maudit, "truly setting his role on fire" (ARTE
Arte
Arte is a Franco-German TV network. It is a European culture channel and aims to promote quality programming especially in areas of culture and the arts...
).
Paulus Manker engaged in more theatre work with Luc Bondy
Luc Bondy
- Biography :Trained in Paris with the theatre teacher Jacques Lecoq, he received a job in 1969 as an assistant at the Hamburg Thalia Theatre. In a surprise, he took over in 1985 after the resignation of Peter Stein at the Schaubühne in Berlin. He also worked as a producer of both plays and operas...
(Ödön von Horvath
Ödön von Horváth
Edmund Josef von Horváth was a German-writing Austro-Hungarian-born playwright and novelist...
's Figaro Gets a Divorce, 1998), with Christoph Schlingensief
Christoph Schlingensief
Christoph Maria Schlingensief was a German film and theatre director, actor, artist, and author. Starting as an independent underground filmmaker, Schlingensief later began staging productions for theatres and festivals, which often were accompanied by public controversies...
(Foreigners Out! Schlingensief's Container, 2000) and on repeated occasions with Peter Zadek (White Rabbit
White Rabbit
The White Rabbit works for the Red Queen, but is also a secret member of the Underland Underground Resistance, and was sent by the Hatter to search for Alice...
in Alice in Wonderland, 1996, Polonius
Polonius
Polonius is a character in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. He is King Claudius's chief counsellor, and the father of Ophelia and Laertes. Polonius connives with Claudius to spy on Hamlet...
in Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, with Angela Winkler
Angela Winkler
Angela Winkler is a German actress.- Biography :Born in Templin, Winkler trained to be a medical technologist in Stuttgart. Interested in theater, she went to Munich, where she took acting classes with Ernst Fritz Fürbringer...
and Otto Sander
Otto Sander
Otto Sander is a German film, theater, and voice actor.Sander grew up in Kassel, where he graduated in 1961 from the Friedrichgymnasium. After leaving school he spent his military service as a navy reserve officer and then studied theatre science, history of art and philosophy. In 1965 he made his...
, Hamburg, 2000), The Jew of Malta
The Jew of Malta
The Jew of Malta is a play by Christopher Marlowe, probably written in 1589 or 1590. Its plot is an original story of religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge, set against a backdrop of the struggle for supremacy between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean that takes place on the...
(2001) as well as in plays by Botho Strauss.
In 2010 Manker appeared in the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
as Theseus
Theseus
For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...
in the acclaimed production of Jean Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
's Phèdre
Phèdre
Phèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
, playing alongside Sunnyi Melles
Sunnyi Melles
Sunnyi Melles is a German actress.-External links:*...
. In the same year, he published a comprehensive book about his father, film director, set designer and theatre director Gustav Manker.
In 2010, Manker was awarded the prestigious Nestroy Audience Award.
Collaboration with Joshua Sobol
Israeli writer Joshua Sobol is Manker's most important artistic partner. Manker has been working with him since 1985, and together they have completed a whole series of projects intended to create new spatial realms and forms of theatrical experience.In 1995, together with Niklas Frank, they adapted Frank's reckoning with his father Hans Frank
Hans Frank
Hans Michael Frank was a German lawyer who worked for the Nazi party during the 1920s and 1930s and later became a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany...
, Hitler's governor-general in Poland. At the Theater an der Wien
Theater an der Wien
The Theater an der Wien is a historic theatre on the Left Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district of Vienna. Completed in 1801, it has seen the premieres of many celebrated works of theatre, opera, and symphonic music...
in Vienna, the audience was turned on a revolving stage from scene to scene, and with the aid of hydraulics, even taken down below stage. They called it a "horror train trip" and used film clips and documents from Frank's private family album.
In 1996, Manker and Sobol created their most successful project to date: Alma – Widow of the four Arts
Alma (play)
Alma is a play by Israeli writer Joshua Sobol based on the life of Alma Mahler-Werfel. It opened 1996 in Vienna."Alma" is the story of Alma Mahler-Werfel, the famous femme fatale and muse to many geniuses. She was the wife of composer Gustav Mahler, also married to architect Walter Gropius and...
, an interactive drama about Alma Mahler-Werfel, in which over 50 scenes were played simultaneously in the rooms of the art-deco Sanatorium Purkersdorf
Sanatorium Purkersdorf
The Sanatorium Purkersdorf was built as a sanatorium in Purkersdorf, Wien-Umgebung, Lower Austria. It was built in 1904-05 by the architect Josef Hoffmann for the industrialist Victor Zuckerkandl and is an example of the style of the Viennese Secession in architecture.- Sanatorium :Zuckerkandl, the...
outside Vienna. The show's 16-year history to date has taken the performance of Alma on tour to the various cities in which her life unfolded: Venice (2002), Lisbon (2003), Los Angeles (2004), Petronell near Vienna (2005), Berlin (2006), to Semmering in 2007, Jerusalem in 2009, from 2008 to 2010 to Vienna, and in 2011 in Prague.
In 2000 Sobol and Manker created a multimedia spectacle at the Viennese Ronacher Theatre: F@lco - A Cyber Show, about Austrian rock star Falco, which was presented on a stage built out into the auditorium in an @ shape in the form of a rock concert with laser, 3D animation and water screen, where the audience was directly involved and could smoke, eat and drink and join in the dancing. By way of contrast, the "remote" audience stood in the boxes, from where they could see both the play and the participating audience.
Film direction
- 1985 Schmutz (Dirt) 1987 "Prize for the best director" and "Special recommendation for the soundtrack", GhentFlanders International Film Festival GhentThe Flanders International Film Festival Ghent was created in 1974. It takes place every year in October. The film festival is famous for its focus on film music, with the World Soundtrack Awards as the highlight.-Grand Prix for Best Film:...
/ 1986 "Premio para a primeira obra", TroiaTroia-Places:Egypt*Tura, Egypt, a town in Cairo GovernorateItaly*Troia, Apulia, a comune in the Province of FoggiaPortugal*Tróia Peninsula, a peninsula in Setúbal District, AlentejoTurkey*Troy, an archaeological site in Çanakkale Province, Marmara...
1986 / "Prix de la Commission Supérieure technique", AvoriazAvoriazAvoriaz is a French mountain resort in the heart of the Portes du Soleil. It is located in the territory of the commune of Morzine. It is easily accessible from either Thonon at Lake Geneva or Cluses-junction on the A40 motorway between Geneva and Chamonix...
/ "Goldener Kader 1988", for cameraman Walter Kindler - 1988 Weiningers Nacht (Weininger's Last Night) Austrian entry for European Film Award 1990 / "Golden Romy 1990" (Best director)
- 1992 Das Auge des Taifun (The Eye of the Typhoon) Documentary about a performance of Erich Wonder and Heiner MüllerHeiner MüllerHeiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
with German Rockband "Einstürzende NeubautenEinstürzende NeubautenEinstürzende Neubauten is a German post-industrial band, originally from West Berlin, formed in 1980. The group currently comprises Blixa Bargeld , Alexander Hacke , N.U...
" - 1995 Der Kopf des Mohren (The Moor's Head) based on a screenplay by Michael HanekeMichael HanekeMichael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
, Fimfestival Cannes 1995 / Prize for Best Films Distribution (Brussesl 1995) Interfilm-Prize (Max Ophüls Prize Saarbrücken) Opening film of the Salzburg FestivalSalzburg FestivalThe Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
1995 (Festival hall) - 1996 Hans Hollein - Everything is Architecture TV-documentary on Austrian architect Hans HolleinHans HolleinHans Hollein, is an Austrian architect and designer.Hollein achieved a diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1956, then attended the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1959 and the University of California, Berkeley in 1960...
- 1997 AlmaAlma (play)Alma is a play by Israeli writer Joshua Sobol based on the life of Alma Mahler-Werfel. It opened 1996 in Vienna."Alma" is the story of Alma Mahler-Werfel, the famous femme fatale and muse to many geniuses. She was the wife of composer Gustav Mahler, also married to architect Walter Gropius and...
- The Widow of the 4 Arts (The life of Alma Mahler-WerfelAlma MahlerAlma Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel was a Viennese-born socialite well known in her youth for her beauty and vivacity. She became the wife, successively, of composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius, and novelist Franz Werfel, as well as the consort of several other prominent men...
) - 2004 Where Blade Runner meets Batman - Downtown Los AngelesDowntown Los AngelesDowntown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, United States, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area...
- 2004 Die Seele brennt heut wieder sehr - Porträt Hilde Sochor (80)
- 2005 Mozart in America (Mozart Minute)
Films/as an actor (selection)
- 1979 Lemminge (Michael HanekeMichael HanekeMichael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
, (TV)) - 1980 Exit - don't Panic (Franz Novotny)
- 1982 The Locked-out (Franz Novotny)
- 1983 The Power of Emotions (Alexander KlugeAlexander KlugeAlexander Kluge is an author and film director.-Early life, education and early career:Kluge was born in Halberstadt, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany....
) - 1984 Who was Edgar Allan? (Michael HanekeMichael HanekeMichael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
) - 1987 The Distant LandThe Distant LandThe Distant Land is a 1987 Austrian-German drama film directed by Luc Bondy. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Michel Piccoli - Friedrich Hofreiter* Bulle Ogier - Génia* Wolfgang Hübsch - Mauer...
(Luc BondyLuc Bondy- Biography :Trained in Paris with the theatre teacher Jacques Lecoq, he received a job in 1969 as an assistant at the Hamburg Thalia Theatre. In a surprise, he took over in 1985 after the resignation of Peter Stein at the Schaubühne in Berlin. He also worked as a producer of both plays and operas...
) - 1988 Sternberg - Shooting Star (Niki List)
- 1988 My 20th CenturyMy 20th CenturyMy 20th Century is a 1989 Hungarian comedy-drama film written and directed by Ildikó Enyedi. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Enyedi won the Golden Camera award at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:...
(Ildiko Enydi) - 1989 Weininger's Last Night (Paulus Manker)
- 1990 Common Death (Michael Schottenberg)
- 1991 Murderous Decicion (Oliver HirschbiegelOliver HirschbiegelOliver Hirschbiegel is a German film director. His works include Das Experiment and the Oscar nominated Der Untergang.- Career :...
) - 1993 Die Sturzflieger (Peter F. Bringmann)
- 1994 Brother of SleepBrother of SleepBrother of Sleep is a 1995 German film directed by Joseph Vilsmaier and based on a novel by Austrian writer Robert Schneider. It was chosen as Germany's official submission to the 68th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, but did not manage to receive a nomination....
(Joseph VilsmaierJoseph VilsmaierJoseph Vilsmaier is a German film director.-Work:After attending a boarding school near Augsburg, he was trained as a technician to make film cameras and then spent nine years at a music conservatory. Following this he was a member of a jazz group...
) - 1996 The CastleDas Schloß (film)Das Schloß is a 1997 TV film by Austrian director Michael Haneke. It is an adaptation of Franz Kafka's absurdist novel and was first aired on Austrian television, but was also released in Germany, The Czech Republic, Japan, Canada, and the USA.-Synopsis:...
(Michael HanekeMichael HanekeMichael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
) - 1997 AlmaAlma (play)Alma is a play by Israeli writer Joshua Sobol based on the life of Alma Mahler-Werfel. It opened 1996 in Vienna."Alma" is the story of Alma Mahler-Werfel, the famous femme fatale and muse to many geniuses. She was the wife of composer Gustav Mahler, also married to architect Walter Gropius and...
(Paulus Manker) - 1999 Code Inconnu (Michael HanekeMichael HanekeMichael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
) - 2000 Wambo (Jo Baier)
- 2002 Die schöne Braut in Schwarz (Carlo Rola)
- 2002 Foreigners Out! Schlingensiefs Container (Paul Poet)
- 2003 Polterabend (Julian Pölsler)
- 2004 Basta - Rotwein oder Todsein / C(r)ook (Pepe Dankwart)
- 2006 Slumming (Michael GlawoggerMichael GlawoggerMichael Glawogger is an Austrian film director, screenwriter and cinematographer.From 1981 to 1982 Glawogger studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and then from 1983 to 1989 at the Vienna Film Academy...
)