The Tschickweiber roll cigars again
Culture
They were long forgotten until twenty years ago a book drew attention to their story. We are talking about the Halleiner Tschikweibern, also the controversial employees of the former cigar factory. Twenty years later, the play of the same name is now being performed on the Pernerinsel.
The Tschickweiber were courageous and hardworking women who died in times of oppressive poverty and worked in the Hallein cigar factory. Until 1939 they toiled there under sometimes inhumane working conditions. But the women factory workers earned more in the tobacco industry than men in the Hallein cellulose factory. The women were known for not mincing words, for their cohesion and their self-confidence.
New production to be seen on the Pernerinsel
It is also a piece of Hallein’s history that can be seen on the Pernerinsel in Hallein. The focus is only on the work and the protest of the women, which is also dedicated to the individual fates of the protagonists, the poverty of the time and also looks back on the difficult childhood of those women who die to something like early fighters for emancipation.
For the director and author, Christa Hassfurther, the play has a seemingly timeless explosiveness: “I think the most important thing is solidarity, cohesion, so as not to let a society diverge, that is exactly the point at which we have to learn again.”
In 1995 the theater theater bodi end sole succeeded in reviving the partly forgotten and repressed history of the city. Twenty years later the play is brought back to the stage. “The topics that are being addressed here are just as hot under the nails as they were 20, 50 or 70 years ago,” says the director.