It was the last premiere at the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel before the house was closed: Sebastian Baumgarten staged “Dantons Tod” by Georg Büchner in the Residenztheater.
"Dantons Tod" was the last premiere at the Residenztheater before the corona-related closure.
Sebastian Baumgarten directed Georg Büchner's drama.
Due to the corona rules, only 50 people were allowed into the theater.
The revolution is not dying.
The revolution is dead;
dies miserably somewhere on the way to freedom, equality, brotherhood.
The wine that Danton serves his fellow campaigner and adversary Robespierre falls gray and dusty into the glass.
Even the men who once rose to fight for a better existence are rotten: undead who find no rest;
Zombies looking for redemption - a little bit of a horror show, conscientiously dissected by Georg Büchner (1813-1837), who studied medicine.
Due to the corona rules, only 50 people were allowed to watch
Sebastian Baumgarten has now staged his drama “Dantons Tod” (1835) for the Staatsschauspiel;
on Friday this last premiere took place before the closure.
She was applauded violently by the 50 allowed spectators.
Because the director and his creative team succeeded in gaining convincing content, musically inspiring and aesthetically impressive access to the material.
With two and a half hours without a break, production is a bit too long.
But Baumgarten cleverly uses the popular motif of the “Walking Dead” to show how people repeatedly stand in the way of their own happiness.
Like the living dead, we longingly long for it, but lose all empathy with the goal in mind.
"The Walking Dead" at the Residenztheater
The evening widens the view.
It goes back, begins in a green, chirping primordial state in which Homo sapiens develops from animal writhing and crawling.
Of course, the actors will not take off their animal full-body suits, but will wear them under their costumes from now on.
With the fast forward button, time is racing to the revolution - not just the French one.
In his virtuoso and precisely cut scenes, video artist Chris Kondek repeatedly draws a link with Lenin and the Russian October revolt, but also with contemporary demonstrations and street battles: the events, as these images tell, take their course with relentless uniformity;
a protest against it seems in vain.
In this tragedy, Baumgarten discovers a desperate comedy.
He lets his ensemble act like zombies and wind-up dolls, and also cites the aesthetics of slapstick and silent films.
Philipp Weiß wonderfully supports and plays around these moments on the piano;
Christoph Clöser's compositions and soundscapes also ensure the artistic density of this evening.
"Dantons Tod" can be seen again in December - hopefully
The revolving stage that Thilo Reuther created leaves no doubt: In a world in which Robespierre is in charge and also controls the deepest thoughts, there is no room for a free life.
The National Convention is desolate and empty, where a robot arm can no longer wipe the blood away, but only distributes it mechanically.
The building of the National Bank, in which Danton and his followers fight, has burned out, even in the brothel the lights only glow sadly.
Danton may see what went wrong, but there is nothing he can do about it.
He has long been a "dead saint", as his friend Lacroix notes.
Florian von Manteuffel succeeds in flashing his figure's former greatness between disgust, tiredness and despair.
Lukas Rüppel, on the other hand, shows Robespierre as an evil inquisitor of virtue: his shoulders always hunched, with a Lenin cap and a cloak tied tightly around his body, he exercises his hostility to life.
He likes to have Danton's head cut off - Baumgarten shows his last moments as a silent film and thus takes away any sharpness.
Because maybe salvation comes with a smile.
