Skip to main content

Showcase Super Aspirin

A self-portrait on Polaroid and a gentleman in a raincoat awaited the winners of the "showcase-super-aspirin". He accompanied the couples inconspicuously and silently to the parking garage opposite. There was indeed a Bentley, built in '92, with its engine running, with a chauffeur and attendant as well as a nice young man who greeted his new guests warmly, opened the car door and invited them to sit down. Just like in the movies. Schnapps was passed around and the truth of what is going about to happen is delivered : "Hello and welcome. You are a guest on a car journey that we recreated which Ralf Rainders and Roland Fritsch undertook through Berlin in February 1975. For you to experience the following ride in Cinemascope format we have prepared these glasses. This will also prevent you from confusing the following with a video clip. I would like to ask you to put these glasses on now." (The field of vision of the goggles provided has been brought to widescreen dimensions with adhesive tape.)


Review

„This Bentley ride was the strongest work of the festival, using theatrical means, text and music to ignite a tension that gets under the skin in ways which no Chekhov, however well performed, can achieve. The authenticity of the context, the city, the car, cannot be conjured up by any stage set, no matter how sophisticated. In the theater, the audience remains seated in front of the action, here they are right in the middle of it and are at the mercy of the "play" and the actors. However, not for a second do they lose the awareness of being part of a production that is not to be confused with real life...“


(Theater Heute, Nr.12 December 1999, Claudia Hennes, Learning by doing – Eine Forschungsreise durch das «Live.Performance.Art»-Festival «Home & Away» in Hannover – translation SCBLM)