The 6-Day Play II
Relics and Traces of the First Three Days
“the 6-day play of the o.m.theater is intended to be the greatest and most important feast of mankind (it is an aesthetic ritual of glorifying existence). it is simultaneously a folk festival and a conscious awareness of the mystery of existence.” – Hermann Nitsch
Ahead of the planned continuation of the 160th performance at Pentecost 2025, the exhibition offers insights into the posthumous realization of the first three days of the second version of the 6-day-play. This was realized in 2022 and 2023 by Rita Nitsch with the support of Leonhard Kopp and Frank Gassner (directors) and Andrea Cusumano (musical director) in Schloss Prinzendorf and its surroundings.
The exhibition focuses on film and photographic recordings documenting the performative processes of the first three days, as well as action shirts, relics, and equipment that served as tools and bearers of physical and ritual traces. Painting shirts and relic paintings from the expressive painting actions of the second day form a highlight of the presentation.
“Nitsch conceived the 6-day-play as a large-scale symphony.” — Rita Nitsch
In 2022, the first day opened the Gesamtkunstwerk with a celebratory prelude. The second day unfolded with vibrant red painting actions in the granary and colorful, dynamic activities in the courtyard. On Whitsunday 2023, the events reached an ecstatic climax: the third day, entirely dedicated to the god Dionysus – symbol of wine, exuberant joy, fertility, and intoxicating ecstasy.
The view now eagerly turns to Pentecost 2025, when the final three days (days 4 to 6) will be performed and the work will become even more intense. The fourth day, after the Dionysian ecstasy, marks a turning point: it is dedicated to death and transcendence, a descent into the depths of humanity. On the fifth day, the figure of Amfortas, the wounded Grail King, takes center stage. Here, Nitsch refers to the inner sacrifice, to the experience of suffering and wounds, which can simultaneously be a moment of insight and redemption. This day is connected to motifs of quiet contemplation and spiritual reflection, without subordinating itself to any specific religious doctrine. The sixth day culminates in a solemn finale in which pain and beauty, life and death, sensuality and spirituality are brought together in an all-encompassing ritual of redemption.
“the feast demands an awareness that leads to a deep acceptance of our tragic reality. the world as a whole should be accepted with all its extremes, its possibilities for happiness, its horrors, and the cruelty of death.” — Hermann Nitsch