Alexander Eisenach

Heinrich Mann’s perceptive bildungsroman published in 1914 «The Loyal Subject» is a wickedly humorous portrait of the Wilhelmine Empire and its self-congratulatory middle classes with their nationalistic fantasies of being a great power. Mann’s protagonist Diederich Hessling is a spineless opportunist with no moral courage. He only forgets his insecurities at the stammtisch, working himself up to give great nationalistic speeches. However, Mann does not present Hessling as a joke – he is a complex but ultimately warped personality with a blind faith in authority.

Ludwig Tieck was way ahead of his time with his masterpiece written in 1797: in his hands the fairy tale of a puss in boots becomes an absurd and comic »play within a play« that leaps joyously across the borders of theatre and reality. 

When Goethe set «Götz von Berlichingen» down on paper in 1771 in a true writing frenzy, the 22-year-old writer was still a complete unknown. This came to an abrupt end with the publication of «Götz», as suddenly the young poet was being talked about everywhere. Goethe’s early work is a powerful stage epic with over fifty locations, several plots running in parallel and a huge cast of characters. What is more: Goethe dispensed with all the customary conventions that 18^th century drama had been using up to that point.

Intrigues, conspiracies, political intrigues - Schiller's tragedy depicts the power struggle between the English Queen Elizabeth I and the Scottish Queen Mary Stuart. But what if only chance decides between power and powerlessness? Then the roles could also be «swapped». For each performance, a draw is held to decide which of the two actresses will play the victor or the vanquished.

A prince of fashion and a fairy-tale king. A bird of paradise and a cult figure. A Munich original and a philanthropist. During the course of his lifetime, Rudolph Moshammer was given countless of these nicknames and soubriquets. Everyone recognized him as an eccentric with his dog Daisy on his arm, a talk show guest and man of society. Like his role model, Bavaria’s fairy-tale king Ludwig II, he loved glamour, opulence, and excess. In his appearances as an actor and in advertisements, as a singer in the preliminary round for the Eurovision Song Contest and with books like «Mama und ich» (Mama and Me), he became a cult figure and his fashion boutique «Carnaval de Venise» in Maximilianstraße became a cult address and place of pilgrimage for Mosi fans.

Austrian playwright Ewald Palmetshofer translates Shakespeare's royal drama «King Henry IV» into the present day of eroding democracies with sophisticated language and defiant humour.

Residenztheater and LMU Munich enter the second season of their co-operation with the question »How do people protect themselves from themselves?«. Understanding science and theatre as a continuum of approaches to the world means researching on stage and discovering storytelling within the sciences.