Organization History (Page 2)

In 1996, Jahnke turned his interest for the first time to presenting a series of obscure and difficult works that fit the fragmentary, literary aesthetic of the company: Oscar Wilde's incomplete La Sainte Courtesane was given a high voltage treatment, with the heroine of the title serenading the dying Christ with Motorhead songs, and in 1997, Jean Anouilh's take on the Antigone of Sophocles was rendered as a fascist fable for the twentieth century.

After his experience working with Reza Abdoh's influential Dar a Luz, Jahnke, moved to New York to work with a new set of collaborators, rechristening the company as The Hotel Savant. Increasingly focused on schematic and design, he presented his first original work in the city, an enigmatic yet topical pastorale entitled Lola Montez in Bavaria… The play premiered in workshop form at the 1998 New York International Fringe Festival and explored the relation of fame to motivation, finding as its protagonists the nineteenth century figures of Lola Montez and King Ludwig I of Bavaria, whose obsessions with power triggered a revolution and resulted in the loss of his throne. The work was successfully remounted at HERE performance space in 1999.

In 2001, temporarily abandoning the usage of music and dance, their next production, the scandalous and violent Mercurius, a Greek tragedy-cum-Guignol, was inspired by the alchemical writings of CG Jung, and premiered at HERE on Valentine's Day.

Mercurius, a haunting tale examining the ramifications of lost childhood, conjured the mythological god of the title, summoned to take revenge on the parents of a pair of alchemist sisters, abandoned in their youth on a remote island.

In 2002, their follow-up work, The Shady Maids of Haiti, inspired by that island's infamous slave revolution of 1803, premiered at Walkerspace, having been developed through an Artist in Residence program at Chashama, Inc. Exploring the presentation of narrative on more sophisticated terms, The Shady Maids of Haiti followed four desperate characters, of mixed races and intentions, playing an ever-shifting game of control in their quest to possess a singular piece of property. The play was published by New York Theatre Experience the following year.

In 2004, their next project, Funeral Games, premiered in workshop form at The Public Theater. As filtered through a modern eye, it is an exploration of Achilles' doomed love for his favorite