After the translation by Ludwig Tieck.
Text/SpFg: Jörg Steinberg. Direction: Jörg Steinberg. Dramaturgy: Holger Kuhla. Stage/Costumes: Heike Neugebauer. Assistant Direction: David Wehr.
With: Svea Auerbach, Peter Lüchinger, Michael Meyer, Erik Roßbander, Markus Seuß.
Quijote is a legend: the knight of the sad figure, who with his old steed and his squire Sancho Panza journeys through a long-forgotten Spain and experiences adventure after adventure. In the name of the declining order of errant knights, he fights for justice, honor, and true love.
What could this literary figure, over 400 years old, still tell us today? We call it "quixotic" when someone fights "against windmills" - against enemies that seem overwhelmingly powerful and perhaps exist only in their own imagination.
Miguel de Cervantes wrote his timely novel in prison, to which his eventful life had led him: he spoke of the dangers but also of the happiness of illusion, which stands in contrast to miserable reality. His characters are in conflict with reality. But is life not also dream (or fantasy) - and vice versa?
How do we relate in our efficiency-oriented reality to people who irritate us with their imagination? Do they still have a place in our world, or do we give them a place? Do we dare to dream away from our rationalized reality - into an imaginary, crazy world and into a life that is both happy and tragic, yet full of fantastic adventures?
Cervantes' novel is a vote for imagination, for the art of living beyond barren realities.