Requiem für eine Illusion
We are invited to immerse ourselves in the thought laboratory of Jean Genet - the literary enfant terrible of 1950s France. We meet the characters of his dramas and their longing for effectiveness and recognition. Roles are played here. Every gown, every dress, every uniform is charged with social status and invites us to play with social images and their power.
REQUIEM FOR AN ILLUSION is a walk-in concert and music theatre. 16 performers - singers, dancers, actors and instrumentalists - are distributed in a labyrinthine space in which the audience can move freely amidst the sounds of Mozart's Requiem. In an attempt to draw a picture of death, the Requiem shows Genet's characters the way to complete their own role.
What is reality, what is illusion? We listen to a polyphonic swan song to the individual - and in the end are confronted with the question of whether we can find ourselves in those images, roles and rituals that, unmasked as illusion, nevertheless remain radically powerful and thus immortal. The space is designed as a labyrinth, with walls of transparent fabric forming corridors and rooms in which scenes from Genet's world take place. Each scene is designed as a completely different stage that has to be explored anew each time. At the same time, the entire space is characterised by the figures moving behind the fabric, creating a performative space of confusion as an overall stage.
Due to the Covid pandemic, the piece was redesigned as a musical theatre film.
