Re-enactment | Spätschicht x Anta Recke
The Soldier
With Komi Mizrajim Togbonou
Komi Mizrajim Togbonou © Eike Walkenhorst
At the invitation of artist Anta Recke, actor Komi Mizrajim Togbonou re-enacts Julian Warner’s performance The Soldier, exploring the parallels between warfare and cultural production.
Together with Julian Warner, Anta Recke appropriated Anna-Sophia Mahler’s 2017 adaptation of Josef Bierbichler’s novel Mittelreich by recasting all roles originally played by white actors with Black performers. In response to the controversy that followed, Warner staged himself as a Black “cultural soldier” in his performance The Soldier (2025), linking his critique of the cultural field to the writings of Frantz Fanon.
Originally intended to take part in Mittelreich in 2017, Komi Mizrajim Togbonou was ultimately unable to join the production. As part of Spätschicht, he now returns to the project retrospectively: together with Recke, he revisits Warner’s performance and develops a new iteration of its cultural-revolutionary narrative.
Komi Mizrajim Togbonou is an actor, musician and activist. He began his career in 2008 with Christoph Schlingensief’s Eine Kirche der Angst vor dem Fremden in mir. He subsequently performed at theatres in Bremen, Heidelberg, Freiburg, Graz, Potsdam, Bonn, Frankfurt and Berlin. Since the 2023/24 season, he has been a member of the ensemble at Deutsches Theater Berlin.
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