Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer's Apprentice)

A story about losing control and incessant escalation, a battle for power between two generations, a mediation on people overestimating themselves, the question of whether it is possible to close Pandora’s box again – as always with Goethe the entire breadth of existence is covered in a few lines: the sorcerer’s apprentice is playing with forces that he cannot control and the spirits that he summoned almost overcome him. Resident director Thom Luz arranges a staged tour of the empty workshops in the Marstall in the footsteps of Goethe’s poem. 

After the Residenztheater’s technical departments have moved into our newly opened rehearsal and workshop centre in Bogenhausen, their former home will be turned into a stage: where carpenters, painters and upholsterers have laboured for years unseen, Thom Luz and the ensemble now not only invite audiences to take a peek behind the scenes but create a special kind of workshop which a small group of visitors is allowed to enter each time. The two giant spaces high above the Marstallplatz become the venue for a magical assembly: here where for seventy-five years theatre magic has been created with paint brushes, welding gear and a circular saw, a promenade performance will be created in which Goethe’s poems and the themes that resonate within it can be experienced in images, sounds and atmospheres. In a series of situations with evocative music and visuals, this is a story of existential causality, fighting against inevitability and also of the very human desire to offer some poetic resistance to the relentless demystification of the world.   

Luz proved himself early on to be a specialist in enchanting orphaned historical buildings with »Radio Requiem« at Theater Basel and »Atlas of Remote Islands« based on the novel by Judith Schalansky at Schauspiel Hannover (invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen). As always in his theatre, it is the fleeting events – melodies, sounds and noises – that come to the fore and lend shape to the progress of time. 

»If you think that technology is going to solve your problems, you don’t understand technology – and you don’t understand your problems.«
Laurie Anderson