Munich Machine
A utopia in memoriam of Klaus Lemke by Albert OstermaierA utopia in memoriam of Klaus Lemke by Albert Ostermaier
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A UFO in the shape of a weisswurst lands in front of the Bayerische Staatskanzlei: is this a film or reality? The film maker and asphalt cowboy Klaus Lemke embarks together with a group of aliens on a high speed, madcap journey through Munich’s history in search of what the city once was and could perhaps be in future. Albert Ostermaier’s new play is an affectionate homage to the film poet Klaus Lemke, who died in 2022, and both a hymn to and reckoning with his home city of Munich.
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A UFO in the shape of a weisswurst lands in front of the Bayerische Staatskanzlei: is this a film or reality? For the film poet of Schwabing and asphalt cowboy Klaus Lemke, it makes no difference. But then aliens climb out of the spaceship! They are looking for an idea, for a utopian society for their home planet. And they think Munich is the ideal object for them to study. Lemke senses that this is great material, so they embark together on a high speed, madcap journey through Munich’s history. They live through the city’s highs and lows, encountering legends such as Helmut Dietl’s Tscharli from «Münchner Geschichten» riding through the Siegestor, the young Franz -Josef Strauss and the then unknown Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in a salon in Schelling at the turn of the century. They land in the middle of the Schwabing riots in 1962, the Olympic Games of 1972 and are eyewitnesses to the proclamation of the Munich Soviet Republic.
Albert Ostermaier’s new play «Munich Machine» is a magnificent theatrical triptych, a Munich altarpiece in three parts: both a hymn to and reckoning with his home city – over what the city once was, is now and could be tomorrow. Above all, however, it is an affectionate homage to the great Munich film maker Klaus Lemke, who died in 2022 at the age of eighty-one.
«Munich Machine» marks the Residenztheater debut of the multi award-winning artist and theatre director Ersan Mondtag. His performance «Monument eines unbekannten Menschen» for the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024 was celebrated by audiences and critics alike.
