Der goldene Drache

The stage is white while the world that Roland Schimmelpfennig creates there is black. In brief episodes the playwright and director tells of the dark side of the globalized world, of exploitation, greed and brutality. A Chinese brother and sister stand in the centre of his high-tempo theatre evening. Both are illegal migrants, struggling to survive and losing. At the end the white stage is smeared with blood, two people are dead and the world is indifferent to their fate. Yet “Der goldene Drache” [The Golden Dragon] is one of the funniest evenings of the season because Schimmelpfennig directs his jet black social parable with a shockingly light touch. Five actors and actresses present the full cabinet of horrors of globalized everyday life on stage with lightning speed. They perform some twenty parts with comic verve in flying changes and are all cast against type: young people play old, women play men. Germany’s most performed playwright keeps this theatrical evening up in the air with consummate directing skills. The estranging devices create distance and allow a new perspective on known injustices. Or is this just social criticism in homeopathic doses?