„Gentle Rage or The Ear Engineer“ A theatre sonata by Gert Jonke about the deafness of the composer Beethoven. Directed by: Herbert Gantschacher / Stage and costumes designed by: Sanzaba Dimna / Light design by: Bidpai / Translated into Austrian Sign Language by: Werner Mössler / Sign Language-Superviser: Horst Dittrich / Cast: Werner Mössler (Ludwig van Beethoven), Klaus Seewald (Anton Schindler, his secretary) and Alexander Mitterer (Ferdinand Waldmüller, Painter and the voice of Beethoven) In the first moment there is no correspondence between the words deafness and sound. But as we know sound comes always from movement. So it is possible to get an impression about sound by hearing. But more interesting is to see the sound of music as a visual and living experience. At all times deaf musicians and deaf dancers and deaf composer were living and they are still living now. The most famous living deaf musician is the percussionist Evelyn Glennie from Scotland. In the 19th century the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana created one of his musical masterpieces “My Fatherland” as a deaf musician. In the theatre sonata by the Austrian poet Gert Jonke Beethoven (1770 – 1827) works in Vienna on one of his most difficult sonatas “The Sonata For Grand Piano”. At that time Beethoven is completely deaf. His secretary Anton Schindler assists him in the daily life and the correspondence and the organisation of musical venues. The conversation between Beethoven and Schindler is mostly a written in the form of conversation books. The painter Ferdinand Waldmüller visits Beethoven and portrays him (The style of the paintings of Waldmüller is a total realism). But Schindler is getting more and involved by himself into the musical life and tries to prevent that Beethoven performs his compositions on the piano by himself. Schindler thinks that the deaf Beethoven is unable to play his music, because he is deaf. Schindler believes that he only tries to prevent a catastrophe. A lot of discussions start between them two and at the end there is a big scandal. Beethoven fires Schindler. But Beethoven himself becomes more and more a visual musical person, who moves the world by his visual musical expressions. The Austrian poet Gert Jonke has created in that theatre sonata a monument for the deaf Beethoven.