The real life story of the Frenchwoman Anne Beaumanoir. Based on the epic poem by Anne Weber. The work, which was awarded the German Book Prize in 2020, deliberately places a woman at the center of a literary form that is usually reserved for male heroes.

Anne, also known as Annette, was born in Brittany in 1923. During the Nazi occupation of France, Annette joins the resistance. In the late 1950s, she joins the Algerians' fight for freedom against the colonial power of France, has to flee France, and leaves her family behind indefinitely. Her biography is rich in "grand history," meaning it is rich in small decisions with great impact. What drives a person to resist? What is worth fighting for? What sacrifices does such a life demand?

The real life story of the Frenchwoman Anne Beaumanoir. Based on the epic poem by Anne Weber. The work, which was awarded the German Book Prize in 2020, deliberately places a woman at the center of a literary form that is usually reserved for male heroes.

Anne, also known as Annette, was born in Brittany in 1923. During the Nazi occupation of France, Annette joins the resistance. In the late 1950s, she joins the Algerians' fight for freedom against the colonial power of France, has to flee France, and leaves her family behind indefinitely. Her biography is rich in "grand history," meaning it is rich in small decisions with great impact. What drives a person to resist? What is worth fighting for? What sacrifices does such a life demand?

A production by studiobühneköln as part of UniBühne

Inspired by the philosopher Donna Haraway and her programmatic sentence "We are compost, not posthuman", the production ANTHROPOS COMPOS deals with the relationships to this mix of organic decay and its significance as a basis for life. ANTHROPOS COMPOS focuses on an ecological vision: The chaos and the symbiotic relationships free humans from their position as the center of the world. Compost is more than a conceptual figure. It represents an embodied empathy with the chaos of living beings. We bury old thought patterns and forge new alliances with old acquaintances – until we crumble to dust. From Homo to Humus. ANTHROPOS COMPOS does not ask what humanity knows about compost, but what it can learn from it.

Full price 15 euros / Reduced 7 euros
Free admission for first-year students of the University of Cologne (upon presentation of a study certificate at the evening box office)

A production by studiobühneköln as part of UniBühne

Inspired by the philosopher Donna Haraway and her programmatic sentence "We are compost, not posthuman", the production ANTHROPOS COMPOS deals with the relationships to this mix of organic decay and its significance as a basis for life. ANTHROPOS COMPOS focuses on an ecological vision: The chaos and the symbiotic relationships free humans from their position as the center of the world. Compost is more than a conceptual figure. It represents an embodied empathy with the chaos of living beings. We bury old thought patterns and forge new alliances with old acquaintances – until we crumble to dust. From Homo to Humus. ANTHROPOS COMPOS does not ask what humanity knows about compost, but what it can learn from it.

Full price 15 euros / Reduced 7 euros
Free admission for first-year students of the University of Cologne (upon presentation of a study certificate at the evening box office)

A production by studiobühneköln as part of UniBühne

Inspired by the philosopher Donna Haraway and her programmatic sentence "We are compost, not posthuman", the production ANTHROPOS COMPOS deals with the relationships to this mix of organic decay and its significance as a basis for life. ANTHROPOS COMPOS focuses on an ecological vision: The chaos and the symbiotic relationships free humans from their position as the center of the world. Compost is more than a conceptual figure. It represents an embodied empathy with the chaos of living beings. We bury old thought patterns and forge new alliances with old acquaintances – until we crumble to dust. From Homo to Humus. ANTHROPOS COMPOS does not ask what humanity knows about compost, but what it can learn from it.

Full price 15 euros / Reduced 7 euros
Free admission for first-year students of the University of Cologne (upon presentation of a study certificate at the evening box office)

The Nazi who becomes a Jew: Edgar Hilsenrath's novel grotesque takes a cynical, disturbing narrative perspective. Max Schulz, a trained hairdresser, rises to prominence in the SS. In the concentration camp, he kills his Jewish friend Itzig Finkelstein and his family with his own hands. Later, he assumes Itzig's identity to escape persecution and emigrates to Israel. Max-Itzig, the mass murderer, becomes a respected man.

Hilsenrath's provocation - telling the Shoah from the perspective of a perpetrator - has lost none of its effectiveness. The duality of the mass murderer, slipping into the skin of his victim and getting away with it, touches on fundamental questions of ethics, morals, and guilt.

With Till Brinkmann, Philipp Sebastian | Stage adaptation and direction Judith Kriebel | Set design Susanne Weibler | Photo Meyer Originals

Press

"Strong stuff and a strong piece of theater that dissolves Hilsenrath's text into breathtakingly fast, vivid slapstick scenes without revealing its theme. Philipp Sebatian and Till Brinkmann embody perpetrator and victim with frightening intensity, two clown-like un-dead from the shadow realm, whose identities sometimes blur, sometimes drift apart - a magnificent, physically demanding performance. The swinging doors of the congenial stage (...) keep the performance in constant tension and movement. The fact that the fundamental questions of guilt and morality do not get lost is the great merit of this production." Kölnische Rundschau

"Congenial realization of Edgar Hilsenrath's provocative rogue novel about the Nazi as a war profiteer" theater:pur

"Judith Kriebel takes on a tightrope walk with her staging of the bizarre rogue novel, which she masters with bravery, thanks in part to a brilliantly tuned acting duo. Intelligently implemented." koeln-nachrichten.de

The Nazi who becomes a Jew: Edgar Hilsenrath's novel grotesque takes a cynical, disturbing narrative perspective. Max Schulz, a trained hairdresser, rises to prominence in the SS. In the concentration camp, he kills his Jewish friend Itzig Finkelstein and his family with his own hands. Later, he assumes Itzig's identity to escape persecution and emigrates to Israel. Max-Itzig, the mass murderer, becomes a respected man.

Hilsenrath's provocation - telling the Shoah from the perspective of a perpetrator - has lost none of its effectiveness. The duality of the mass murderer, slipping into the skin of his victim and getting away with it, touches on fundamental questions of ethics, morals, and guilt.

With Till Brinkmann, Philipp Sebastian | Stage adaptation and direction Judith Kriebel | Set design Susanne Weibler | Photo Meyer Originals

Press

"Strong stuff and a strong piece of theater that dissolves Hilsenrath's text into breathtakingly fast, vivid slapstick scenes without revealing its theme. Philipp Sebatian and Till Brinkmann embody perpetrator and victim with frightening intensity, two clown-like un-dead from the shadow realm, whose identities sometimes blur, sometimes drift apart - a magnificent, physically demanding performance. The swinging doors of the congenial stage (...) keep the performance in constant tension and movement. The fact that the fundamental questions of guilt and morality do not get lost is the great merit of this production." Kölnische Rundschau

"Congenial realization of Edgar Hilsenrath's provocative rogue novel about the Nazi as a war profiteer" theater:pur

"Judith Kriebel takes on a tightrope walk with her staging of the bizarre rogue novel, which she masters with bravery, thanks in part to a brilliantly tuned acting duo. Intelligently implemented." koeln-nachrichten.de

Frank is a soldier and controls drones from his home office to bomb targets in a dictatorship, the country "A Middle Without End." However, he is struck by an old curse: his son is born without a bottom. Frank embarks on a journey to the east. He wants to reach the place he bombed – in search of understanding. In the process, he gets deeper into a world of spirits that allows him to reinterpret history, guilt, and responsibility. In "Posthuman Condition," the theater author Pat To Yan, born in Hong Kong in 1975, describes the structures of a dictatorship and what it means to be "human" when profound societal and technological upheavals threaten it.

Frank is a soldier and controls drones from his home office to bomb targets in a dictatorship, the country "A Middle Without End." However, he is struck by an old curse: his son is born without a bottom. Frank embarks on a journey to the east. He wants to reach the place he bombed – in search of understanding. In the process, he gets deeper into a world of spirits that allows him to reinterpret history, guilt, and responsibility. In "Posthuman Condition," the theater author Pat To Yan, born in Hong Kong in 1975, describes the structures of a dictatorship and what it means to be "human" when profound societal and technological upheavals threaten it.

In "Café Populaire," Nora Abdel-Maksoud brings the long-dead class concept back to life and exposes with biting wit bourgeois delusions and self-deceptions. The author leads her audience to a small town where the hospice clown Svenja, the left-wing veteran Püppi, and Aram, a representative of the "service proletariat" who cleans for Svenja and competes with her for the takeover of the guesthouse "Zur Goldenen Möwe," once a working-class pub and cultural center, are on stage. In the hyper-woke Svenja resides "der Don," her ugly alter ego who despises lower-class people, sausage eaters, and reality TV viewers and shamelessly interferes in the plot.

Nora Abdel-Maksoud turns her outrage about social conditions into dark comedies. These are sometimes referred to as a new form of popular theater, a term she agrees with. "I really like the word popular theater," she says. Dust-free, it means a theater "that wants to tell stories, that is approachable and inclusive."

WITH Renate Fuhrmann, Lisa Sophie Kusz, Mirka Ritter, Felix Bold
DIRECTOR Guido Rademachers
SET DESIGN Katrin Lehmacher
DIRECTOR'S ASSISTANT Barbara Büchmann

Sivan Ben Yishai's piece is a radical, harsh, and at the same time humorous self-experiment about love. About how every woman (and man) changes within it. Nominated for the Mülheim Theater Prize 2020.
Comic hero Popeye, the muscle-bound sailor, must constantly fight against all sorts of adversaries. Mostly to rescue his long-time friend Olive Oyl from the highest danger. In "Love," everything is different: author Sivan Ben Yishai turns sidekick Olive into the protagonist, and the two comic characters become prototypes for heterosexual couple relationships today. Intimate matters are publicly addressed because social power relations are inscribed in the stories of the body. As a keen observer of her own love life, Olive dissects the ambivalence between female self-determination and losing oneself in old relationship patterns - only to reinvent herself in the end with archaic fury.

Nominated for the Cologne Theater Prize 2022

Sivan Ben Yishai's piece is a radical, harsh, and at the same time humorous self-experiment about love. About how every woman (and man) changes within it. Nominated for the Mülheim Theater Prize 2020.
Comic hero Popeye, the muscle-bound sailor, must constantly fight against all sorts of adversaries. Mostly to rescue his long-time friend Olive Oyl from the highest danger. In "Love," everything is different: author Sivan Ben Yishai turns sidekick Olive into the protagonist, and the two comic characters become prototypes for heterosexual couple relationships today. Intimate matters are publicly addressed because social power relations are inscribed in the stories of the body. As a keen observer of her own love life, Olive dissects the ambivalence between female self-determination and losing oneself in old relationship patterns - only to reinvent herself in the end with archaic fury.

Nominated for the Cologne Theater Prize 2022

Sivan Ben Yishai's piece is a radical, harsh, and at the same time humorous self-experiment about love. About how every woman (and man) changes within it. Nominated for the Mülheim Theater Prize 2020.
Comic hero Popeye, the muscle-bound sailor, must constantly fight against all sorts of adversaries. Mostly to rescue his long-time friend Olive Oyl from the highest danger. In "Love," everything is different: author Sivan Ben Yishai turns sidekick Olive into the protagonist, and the two comic characters become prototypes for heterosexual couple relationships today. Intimate matters are publicly addressed because social power relations are inscribed in the stories of the body. As a keen observer of her own love life, Olive dissects the ambivalence between female self-determination and losing oneself in old relationship patterns - only to reinvent herself in the end with archaic fury.

Nominated for the Cologne Theater Prize 2022