by Zdenka Becker
The story of four friends in their late thirties and early forties, Boogie & Blues examines the effect of permanent disability on friendships and relationships. Jutta, a photographer, is forced to decide between sacrificing her personal and professional aspirations or her marriage when her successful jazz musician husband, Conny, suffers a severe stroke. Despite professions of life-long friendship, Jutta and Conny’s best friends and colleagues, Larissa and Frankie, quickly turn their backs on Conny’s condition and leave Jutta alone to pick up the pieces. Under pressure from her mother, nurses and Frankie, who wants her to travel to the United States for a photo shoot, Jutta nevertheless stands by Conny, whose condition, over the course of the play, slowly improves, ending with him regaining the ability to walk by the end.
Zdenka Becker was born in Eger in the Czech Repbulic, was raised in Bratislava in Slovakia and has been living and working in Austria since 1975. She holds degrees from the University of Economics in Bratislava and the University of Vienna. She has, in addition to her work as a writer, worked as an actor, dramaturg, director, journalist, teacher and translator. She is the author of numerous plays and novels. Her work has received many awards, including the Theodor Körner prize in 1995 and the 2000 prize of the Conference of the Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association.
