Nico Sphinx of Ice

Nico was a femme fatale in New York in the '70s. A tall and beautiful German blonde, a model, actor, Andy Warhol "Superstar", icon of heroin chic, and girlfriend to Brian Jones, Lou Reed, Jim Morrison and Alain Delon. Nico was every man's fantasy, famous for singing her lovers' songs.

Then she decided to sing her own.

"She started at some point, um, having a real resentment over her good looks. She hated the fact that people thought she was beautiful. She thought this was some sort of disgrace to be beautiful... But in those days modelling was not artistic... you know, artistic was to be like Janis Joplin screaming your lungs out before you die of drug addiction... She was so happy to be called ugly..." (Paul Morrissey)

The Free Theatre will explore the two sides of Nico, performing songs Lou Reed wrote for her as well as her later solo work. Ian Loughran was a 17 year old in Manchester when he befriended Nico in the early '80s. He will perform poems he wrote as a "star-struck teenager" along with some of his recent work and stories of their time together, which reveal the ongoing impact Nico has on his life. Werner Fritsch's musical monologue, Nico Sphinx of Ice, will also be performed by two actors with live musicians.

In 2008, we have performed three plays by Werner Fritsch (see links at right). We have performed three seasons of Faust Chroma, two in Christchurch and one in Dunedin, and two seasons of Enigma Emmy Göring and Nico Sphinx of Ice, one in Christchurch and one in Dunedin.

We hope to be able to bring these three shows to wider audiences, with a revised version of Nico in Christchurch and a North Island tour of Faust Chroma in February 2009.

In the meantime, we are continuing discussions and training for "The Balcony Project", an investigation into the relationship between fantasy and reality, between acting in theatre and acting in everyday life.