der die mann

Resident director at the Schaubühne from this season onwards, Herbert Fritsch was still an actor at the Volksbühne when he started developing solo theatre evenings about Konrad Bayer, a member of the Vienna Group, founded as a literary circle by experimental writers in 1950s Vienna. In »der die mann«, which was invited to the 2016 Theatertreffen, he again enters the universe of language artist Bayer and it almost seems like the texts have just been waiting for someone like Fritsch and his disparately uniformed voice art collective of actors and musicians to rediscover them and make them chime again in the here and now. »the desperate karl takes to karl. but karl had already taken karl. suddenly karl appears with karl on the karl and throws karl upon karl into the karl«. Just as the language from Bayer’s word factory progresses hand over hand from word to word, so − in Fritsch’s garishly coloured scenic construction and on numerous, deliberately taken detours − one thing leads to another and then to the next with noise, music and light, costumes and bodies spiralling up to a virtuously choreographed height of meaninglessness.