Schiff der Träume (And the Ship Sails On)

On the funereal “ship of dreams” (based on Fellini’s film about a sinking vessel) Karin Beier quotes Marthaler-moments with delicate irony (Marthaler’s performers Bettina Stucky, Rosemary Hardy, Sasha Rau and Joseph Ostendorf are members of her stunning crew) for an hour and a half - musical, whimsical and melancholy. The very best of German city theatre! Until composer Wolfgang and his symphony Human Rights No. 4 have been utterly dispatched posthumously by his malicious orchestra and the dust of a lovely culture of irony has flown from the urn. And then, a cut: Black performers, playing the role of refugees, enter the theatre ship, a gang of five (among them Gotta Depri and Michael Sengazi, two performers steeled in Gintersdorfer/Klaßen’s German-Ivorian shows). No more delicate lighting, no tenderly dripping music. They’re brash, loud, offensive and want to reach the upper decks. For the next hour and a half, their confident performance makes the funeral orchestra reel back and forth between humanitarianism and the preservation of their property, concluding in a dance that spans the cultures. The final self-abandonment of decadent Europeans? Not quite yet! We will have to continue working in this profoundly unsettled zone of goodwill, where the distribution of roles may well to be negotiated.

www.schauspielhaus.de