Die Katze, die ihre eigenen Wege ging

(2019) 50' / for actress, three singers, and three musicians

(The cat who walked by herself)

Libretto Anne-May Krüger
based on motives from Rudyard Kipling's "The Cat that Walked by Himself!

commissioned by the Landestheaters Linz and premiered there on May 21st, 2021 with

Katze Sophie Kirsch
Frau Jana Markovic
Mann Peter Fabig
Kind / Hund / Kuh / Pferd Tina Josephine Jaeger

Viola (auch Hund) Oriol Tort Cano
Violoncello (auch Kuh) Juan Manuel Bermúdez Obando
Contrabass (auch Pferd) Caroline Adriana Renn

Stage direction Sabine Sterken
Musical direction Romely Pfund, Kieran Staub
Set and costumes Aleksander Kaplun
Dramaturgy Anna Maria Jurisch

Synopsis

At a time when everything is still wild and nameless, man and woman meet - hungry, freezing, and homeless. They decide to brave the wilderness together and move into a toad, no owl, no: cave! They light a fire, and the smell of the food prepared on it brings the wild dog. For a bone, he submits to the people and henceforth guards their home. The smell of hay, which serves as a cushion, and of clover, from which medicine is prepared, also tame horse and cow, which now serve as a mount and milk supplier. Disparagingly, all this is observed by the cat: "I go my own ways, and all places are alike to me." But it is hard to stay wild when the cave beckons with warmth and with the scent of cow's milk! The cat coaxes the initially dismissive woman and extracts a promise from her: if she says something good about the cat three times, then the cat will be allowed into the cave, by the fire, and will be given milk to drink every day ...

The woman does not expect to have to keep her promise. But when the crying of the newborn baby does not want to end, the purring of the cat helps. The cat earns a second praise by teaching husband and wife, worn down by the routines of living together, how to dance. But then dog, horse, and cow rebel against their yoke - too monotonous is the safe but quite bland tame life without wildness.  The people react in panic: without horse no hunting, without dog no security, without cow no milk ... The cat pricks up its ears: No milk? She convinces the other animals to occasionally give free rein to lustful intoxication (a process of self-discovery expressed purely instrumentally in the play) and yet enjoy the benefits of civilized existence in the community. In this sense, husband and wife let the animals have their way and from now on also live according to the cat's example - tame, but also sometimes wild. - Anne-May Krüger