Der Botschafter

Gintersdorfer/Klaßen

A German-African Singspiel

Hard political messages to rousing music have a certain tradition in Africa – not only because of the legendarily cynical election songs of the Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, who canvassed for votes with “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him”. So it’s no accident that this time in their investigation of postcolonial potential and German-African relations Ginterdorfer/Klaßen have been inspired by the cheerful nostalgia of French film musicals.
The two eponymous German ambassadors could not be more different: One is old school, separates the two nations, keeps his distance with empathy. The other, totally post-modern, connects everything with everything else, all with a young Guinean wife and various adopted children. The only thing their strategies for dealing with crises and the everyday have in common are their honest endeavors to make the best of the situation usually without any clear instructions from the Foreign Office.
The ensemble of Ivorian and German actors, performers and musicians take possession of both biographies anarchically. Their continual change of role and perspective allow reality and fiction to tumble through each other. There is dancing and singing and a lot of translation, from one language into another, from one culture, one frame of reference, one world into the next. Who is representing whom can change constantly. Tales of power and powerlessness, distance and entanglement turn into a brilliant, speculative play. And the ambassador mutates more and more into a surface for the projections of others while he negotiates with various murky politicians and military leaders and is defeated by the brutal reality of nationalism and megalomania.

The show on 20 June will be followed by an Artist Talk

The show on 15 June will be followed by an opening party with Eric Parfait Francis Taregue alias SKelly & Hauke Heumann at the micros and behind the DJ desk.

ON

Duration 105’

Tickets can be purchased here

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