“Was geschah mit Baby Jane?” (What happened to Baby Jane?)

The two sisters Jane and Blanche Hudson have been living in complete isolation in a Hollywood villa for years. Around 1917, Jane Hudson was a celebrated child star with the stage name Baby Jane. However, Jane never made the jump into an adult career. While she is stagnating, her sister Blanche is rising to become a star in the cinematic heavens. But at the zenith of her career, Blanche has a mysterious car accident that keeps her bound to a wheelchair …

The piece is based on the novel “What ever happened to Baby Jane?” by Henry Farrell (1960). It became famous with the screen adaptation by Robert Aldrich with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in 1962. Nikolaus Habjan transformed the material into a puppet theatre thriller and addresses such issues as losing a sense of reality, love and hate as well as guilt and responsibility.

Manuela Linshalm was born in Vienna in 1976 and completed an education programme in acting at the Franz Schubert Konservatorium. She took instruction in song and dance; she has been learning puppeteering with Nikolaus Habjan since 2008 and with Neville Tranter in 2012. She has performed at the Akademietheater Wien, Theater an der Wien and Residenztheater München, and works regularly with Nikolaus Habjan as a puppeteer.

Nikolaus Habjan, born in Graz in 1987, is one of the most interesting and multifaceted artists of his generation in Austria. As a director, actor, puppet builder and puppeteer, he has worked at the Schauspielhaus Graz and Burgtheater Wien, among others, but also as an opera director at the Bayerische Staatsoper München, at the Theater an der Wien and the Oper Dortmund. After his guest performances at euro-scene Leipzig since 2016, he is once again present with numerous pieces this year.