Pangs Theater's 'Sonderkommando' To Be Presented At SF Fringe

 Pangs Theater Ensemble announces that, from September 4, 2008 through September 14, 2008, the San Francisco Fringe Festival will host Pangs Theater Ensemble's performance of Sonderkommando, a modern multi-genre piece on the subject of genocide and mass suffering. Sonderkommando is written and directed by Wolfgang Thompson, Pangs Theater Ensemble's Artistic Director.
 
Sonderkommando is the third in Mr. Thompson's Holocaust trilogy of modern performance pieces, the first of which, Lamb, performed in August of 2007, was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, KQED affiliate interviews, as well as other significant media.
 
As do Mr. Thompson's other modern multi-disciplinary pieces, Sonderkommando combines recognized, prominent ancient and modern texts with choreographed modern and classical dance into a performance that comments on suffering.  The pieces advance modern performance, as well as make commentary on the human condition.
 
Sonderkommando includes several of Mr. Thompson's original concepts, including "shared line" and "distant tension".
 
Using modern and classical dance, beautiful early-1900's poetry, Biblical text and medieval sermonizing discourse, Sonderkommando dramatizes the truth about human suffering. Its goal is to get to the heart of the source of genocide and to enable the audience to understand and feel the pain of humanity.
 
Sonderkommando will be performed as part of the San Francisco Fringe Festival, thus following the San Francisco Fringe Festival schedule and process, including the reservation of some tickets for door entry. For this reason, advance ticket sales to reserve a seat for the performances, available through the Pangs Theater Ensemble website through Brown Paper Tickets will be limited.
 
Pangs Theater Ensemble is a performance company founded in San Francisco in 2004 producing modern multi-disciplinary work and classics. Its work is marked by a physical style of performance and direction, as well as its incorporation of historical and modern elements into its productions. Even classics are presented applying a physical, multi-disciplinary approach, including a strong focus on choreography, patterns of body movement, and exploration of the physical space among the characters. Pangs Theater Ensemble's physical approach is developed by its Artistic Director Wolfgang Thompson. Pangs Theater Ensemble is a member of Theatre Bay Area and B.A.P.S.T.
 
Wolfgang Thompson, Pangs Theater Ensemble's Artistic Director, has recently directed Federico Garcia Lorca's "rural trilogy" of plays, Blood Wedding, Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba, Georg Buchner's Woyzeck, Moliere's Don Juan, and his own multi-disciplinary performance pieces Resolved and Lamb, the work commended by audiences and the press. In the upcoming season, Mr. Thompson will direct the Virginia Woolf/Anne Sexton Project, Shakespeare's Julius Cesar, and Strindberg's Miss Julie.