Der Hauptmann von Köpenick

Fresh out of prison, Wilhelm Voigt is not allowed to work because he has no papers. But to get those papers, he needs a job. When all his efforts to outwit the bureaucracy fail, his only remaining hope is to try to defeat the system with its own tricks. He puts on a disguise, comes back on stage and suddenly he is acting along. But in which play? Or is this real life? Together with his ensemble, Sebastian Hartmann is well known for seeking fundamentally new approaches to existing material and enabling points of contact with the here and now. As a consequence, his Hauptmann von Köpenick plays not only with the play’s original script, but also with the audience’s expectations – because this highly energetic, powerfully visual Punch and Judy theatre packed with ideas drags dependent relationships and the brutality of human existence into the glaring spotlight.  

Jury Statement

“What can be done with a 95-year-old ‘German fairy tale’ in which a cunning cobbler marches into Köpenick town hall wearing a junk shop uniform? And which seems to have been considered a superior TV comedy ever since the 1956 film version with Heinz Rühmann, though people are fond of forgetting that its underlying subject – the soldier inside everyone – is not remotely funny? Sebastian Hartmann and his splendid ensemble have a brilliant idea: they conceal neither the depths nor the comic aspects of the material – albeit without reproducing the comedy in its stricter sense. Hartmann has copied the facade of Cottbus’s theatre on stage. This bears an inscription ‘Der deutschen Kunst’ – to German art – and what happens now is a marionette theatre of (not only) German mental history in which a gifted theatrical team with a talent for (self-)irony probe Carl Zuckmayer’s play for its contemporary relevance. On the surface it looks as if the crew had casually enriched a backstage comedy with discursive material. But in fact, it gets deep down inside the nature and presence of the soldier – including in the theatre.”
– Christine Wahl for the Theatertreffen-jury

Tothe video statement (in German)

ProgrammeBooklet (pdf, 1 MB)