Lose yourself for a while and take a surreal journey through the human psyche led by a power trio of the Estonian theatre scene (with connections to the legendary, now defunct Theatre NO99). Let three white men kindly explain it all to you. How to chop wood correctly. How to care for an elderly person. How to sunbathe in a St. Petersburg prison cell with a single, east-facing window and how to dispose of a corpse. In short, WORKSHOP will equip you with everything you need to know in life. The tools are countless and the fiendish pace of things that need to be taught and learned might overload your brain a bit. Don’t worry though, you’re in good hands. You won’t get lost in the woods, unless you’re of a fragile nature.

Conceived, devised and performed by: Mart Kangro, Juhan Ulfsak, Eero Epner 

Producer, consultant: Maria Arusoo

Music: Artjom Astrov

Lighting: Oliver Kulpsoo

Production: Eneli Järs

Co-production: Kanuti Gildi SAAL

Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia

Thanks to: Jana Kadastik, Hannes Praks, Kairi Mändla, Reigo Tammjärv, AS MASS

Presentation at the Bazaar Festival in Prague is supported by the Ministry of Culture Estonia and the Embassy of the Estonian Republic.

Running time: 100 min 

Language: English

Juhan Ulfsak is a film and theatre actor and director. His energetic acting style and artistic principles have defined Estonian avant-garde theatre since the 1990s.  Ulfsak, who works at the Von Krahl theatre as an actor and, more recently, a director, has a background in anarchism, punk, decadence, surrealism and conceptualism, but his productions also include recontextualizations of classic plays. He has worked as an actor and director in other Estonian theatres (Divadlo NO99) and abroad (Münchner Kammerspiele).

Mart Kangro is a freelance choreographer, director and dancer. His work focuses on the significance of the human body and movement in the theatre as a semiotic time-space and the existential questions of stage situations. In recent years, he has produced works in which he does not himself perform (for Theatre NO99 and Theatre Von Krahl and also in Moscow). Kangro has received many awards and other commendations for his work in Estonia and abroad. 

Eero Epner has contributed to roughly 60 productions as a dramaturg, often as an author of texts or parts of texts. He began working at NO99 in 2005. He has collaborated with dozens of directors, including multiple collaborations with Kangro and Ulfsak.  Epner has appeared onstage as an actor only once before (in a production by Mart Kangro), to little fanfare.