Steinerne Gäste (Stony Guests)
What we see on stage: The artist and an empty pedestal. Deserted plinths such as this are the topic of Steinerne Gäste which ponders the afterlife of overthrown statues – are they really gone after their fall? A performance between sober recital and bombastic opera music.
Oliver Zahn refers about overthrown statues of colonial rulers and military strategists, about Lenin’s head and the imperial eagle on the portal of Tempelhof airport. They have been sawn up, buried, melted down, repurposed as building materials, hidden away, and also, quite frequently, re-erected. What happens with those monuments after their fall tells a lot about the societies that want to dispense with them – and this is oftentimes absurdly comical in its unintentional imagery.
The initial inspiration for the performance derives from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, a musical source that frequently reoccurs throughout the piece. The opera’s titular hero is haunted by the statue of a man he murdered. Is this revenant reality or the culprit’s delusion? In the theatre, stage fog billows about the empty pedestal. Who or what do we mean to see in these intangible forms? What is certain: The phantom is far from gone as long as the pedestal remains.
“A haunted house ride through the world of overthrown monuments.” Oliver Kranz, RBB Kultur, February 24th, 2022
Tickets at www.impulsefestival.de
By and with: Oliver Zahn; Dramaturgy: Felizitas Stilleke; Technical direction: Dennis Dieter Kopp; Artistic production management: Martina Neu.
Supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe of the State of Berlin.
