antigone. ein requiem / Die Politiker

Who is actually taking responsibility in this country?

Dead bodies are being washed up on the beaches where people would normally be sunbathing. The bodies of countless unrelated, anonymous strangers. The chorus asks whose concern these bodies are. Themselves, the citizens, or the ruler, Creon? The chorus knows that the foundations of their democracy are fragile. Might it collapse when confronted by too many dead foreigners?

Creon simply does not want to know about them: the dead bodies are not his. But Antigone feels responsible: she removes the corpses from their hastily procured bags and drags them into the city.  The discussion about how to treat the nameless, unidentifiable bodies that have been washed ashore divides Thebes. It is not her dead brother who lies at the centre of this “recomposition” as the writer Thomas Köck describes his play antigone. ein requiem (Antigone. a requiem). In his adaptation of Sophocles’s ancient text, the conflict between Creon and Antigone develops into a discourse on human rights, values and how politics is practised. Because Creon does not see himself as responsible for the fate of these dead people. Instead, he is supported by the logic of a new, neo-liberal age in which the state is relieved of its social responsibilities and power is gathered in its own hands. Author Wolfram Lotz also asks what we can expect from our “representatives of the people”.  His great prose poem Die Politiker gathers together all the demands, both great and small, that we make of “the politicians”. What they can, must, may, should, should not, are not allowed to and must not ever do cascades over us in a torrent of words, digging deeper and deeper into our ears and into our minds. And into our own personal lives. Because ultimately we are politicians of our selves too. 

Lotz’s text, which has been conceived specificially to be performed in combination with other plays, is combined in this evening with Köck’s new classical composition. Two contemporary playwrights in an exciting dialogue about each individual’s role in society’s great game of politics.