Christoph Marthaler

»Marthaler at his best« was how Deutschlandfunk described this masterpiece of theater - an artistic summit meeting in the pharmacy of Swiss everyday transcenders Christoph Marthaler and Dieter Roth in the pharmacy.

No one expected a pandemic when Christoph Marthaler planned his new production in a pharmacy stage set and began rehearsals at Kampnagel in January 2020. The aseptic, neutral pharmacy was a space for Marthaler to approach Dieter Roth: an artistic soulmate of Marthaler, this other great Swiss artist had left his mark on 20th-century art with his mold paintings and with his obeisance to dirt and the non-perfect. Roth, a truly interdisciplinary artist, also left behind a large body of poetry and once during his lifetime gave Marthaler his book »Das Weinen (Das Wähnen), Band 2A (Tränenmeer 4)«: a collection of scenic word-artistry with role names such as »Setzei«, »Dochherein« or »Einerdemschwindelt 1«. In Marthaler's production, five actresses and a rather silent man turn these original texts into virtuoso linguistic art. Roth's texts reveal, spoken, their polysemantic quality of being simultaneously concrete and abstract, unambiguous and ambiguous. Here, once again, apparent becomes the Marthaler principle of musical staging, which creates a smooth transition from spoken to sung text, and which has influenced younger theater makers such as Thom Luz. A leitmotif of sorts in DAS WEINEN (DAS WÄHNEN) is the Lacrimosa from the REQUIEM - Mozart's mass for the dead, which is also the basis for the world premiere by Kyle Abraham and Jlin in the third week of the festival.

With a year's delay, Marthaler is now showing his »piece of the hour« (SRF) at its place of origin, Kampnagel – the city in which Marthaler has long had private and professional ties. Just as Dieter Roth had, in whose Hamburg museum the summer festival commissions further.

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