On Friday, 3rd May 2024, the White Horse Theatre visited the Deutsch-Französisches Gymnasium. The British theatre company specializes in performing English-language plays at schools and brought along two different stage productions:
For all year 9 students, the programme included Neighbours With Long Teeth, a self-written play dealing with the themes of xenophobia, family conflicts and generational conflicts.
Here is an introductory text for the theatre play:
Mr and Mrs Smith live in a respectable part of the town. They are horrified when they discover that their new neighbours are a family of vampires. Their son Rick, on the other hand, feels himself immediatly attracted to the vampires’ daughter Phylthia.
Will the Smiths manage to get over their hatred of vampires? Have they the right to try to stop their son from having a relationship with the attractive neighbour? What are Phylthia’s real intentions towards Rick? Will Rick fall victim to the blood-sucking attentions of Phylthia’s father, the terrifying Count Spatula? And is the audience safe when Count Spatula is thirsty? (source : Neighbours with Long Teeth by The White Horse Theatre).
After a short break, all Seconde and Première classes were then treated to a classic of English-language literature: Pygmalion by the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. This social satire explores themes of class, identity and the power of language.
The language-professor Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can pass a common flower-girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden-party, simply by training her to speak correctly. The lessons begin, and after six months Eliza can speak and behave like a lady: Higgins wins his bet. But then the real problems start…
What is to become of Eliza, now that Higgins has removed her from her origins? And what are the emotional connections between Higgins, Eliza, Colonel Pickering, and Higgins’ mother? The famous professor soon finds himself lost in a world of feminine feelings and sensibilities that he, with his brash masculinity and analytical brain, cannot understand… (source: Pygmalion by the White Horse Theatre)
