AR effect brings the dead back to life
Volkstheater and DMB. are staging sensational action scenes for the world premiere of David Schalko's successful novel adaptation Schwere Knochen.
The promotion of the premiere of the play Schwere Knochen (Heavy Bones) is full of dark humour. Based on the crime novel of the same name by author and director David Schalko (Braunschlag, Altes Geld), this deliciously criminal play about the Viennese underworld is set in the turmoil of the post-war period in Austria. It is being promoted with an equally haunting campaign announcing the premiere, which will take place on 15 January in Hall E of the Museumsquartier. Five marble gravestones placed around the city commemorate the protagonists who died in the play and bring them to life in an unusual way: Augmented reality allows the supposedly deceased to be granted a few last words. If you scan the QR code on the gravestones with your smartphone, you can watch a video with a message from the person inside.
On Wednesday morning, the actors Isabella Knöll, Peter Fasching and Thomas Frank ferried Schalkos’ stage heroes to their last resting place in the Museumsquartier.
Other gravestones can be found around the Museumsquartier, in the Prater, in DonauCity and in front of the Karlskirche. Anyone who wants to pay their last respects to the characters from the gangster-themed piece and try out the AR effect can do so until the premiere on 15 January – the spectacular advertising campaign, realised in cooperation with the creative team of the agency Demner, Merlicek & Bergmann, will continue until then.
“With theatrical magic, actors and actresses regularly die on stage only to stand up again and bow before the audience alive and well. It gives me great pleasure to put this idea into a digital format”, says Anna Badora, Volkstheater director, to explain the campaign background.
The gravestones are flanked by posters visible all over Vienna with obituaries of the play’s protagonists, on which the QR codes with a link to the video are also displayed. This campaign is already the third promotion in the city that Volkstheater is implementing with the DMB. agency: The anger room for The Merowingians; or, The Total Family and the burnt objects for The Fire Raisers made Volkstheater the talk of the town in 2019.