EUROPE AN ALIEN

For urbanites – nach den großen Städten (für Städtebewohner – after the big cities) dealt with the approaching THEATERTOD (theatre-death) as a critique of the local urban development on the stage of the TAT (Theatre at the Tower). In europe an alien the stage turns into a place of exile and the theatre into an asylum. “The modern audience member comes into the theatre as a customer, but at the same time like a refugee.” (Brecht 1936) It’s about theatre in exile and theatre as refuge: The stage is Europe, the `spiritual Europe´, which for hundred of years has been called for. But the European, the `Homo Europaeus´ (Paul Valéry) remains unknown, it’s an alien being. `The prince, formerly known as Hamlet´, the TO BE OR NOT TO BE of the whole old world – a world out of order: EUROPA withOUT (OF) bORDERs!

europe an alien functions like a musical clock. In the moments of silence it starts again, backwards. The ghost which haunts Europe is its own future figure from the past –a changing figure like the cloud in the dialogue between Hamlet and Polonius, a camel or a whale or a “Nasenpopel aus einer Konfirmandennase” (Gottfried Benn).