by Lukas Rietzschel - this event will take place in German language.
Commissioned by the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Theater Görlitz-Zittau
At an election meeting, people come together, politicians and voters, the press and party colleagues, political opponents. The tension is high shortly before the election. There are two promising candidates – the mayor and Samuel W. – and lots of questions: “Who is Samuel W.? Is he human? A thought? An idea? Does Samuel W. represent a place? Or for a while? Is he us?”
Lukas Rietzschel wrote a piece on behalf of the Gerhart Hauptmann Theater. It asks many questions and, as the author puts it, consists of one hundred conversations. Between January and September 2022, the novelist and playwright, who has been living in Görlitz for several years, conducted it in the Neissestadt, among other places, and so, if the adjective “exemplary” wasn’t in the title, one could think that it was without a doubt in play our region. Yes, Lukas Rietzschel traces the life of a politician who was born in the GDR, in an area with brown coal mines, with smog, soot and dirt, with people who are thinking about whether they have to leave their homeland because they are no longer there is worth living - but all of this doesn't only exist here. And then there is this Samuel W., who doesn't appear but is always present, who becomes a politician and joins an obviously radical party, even though he's here... or maybe because he grew up here? “Is he us? One of us?"
How is it that one person becomes radicalized while the other seeks consensus and reconciliation - that is Lukas Rietzschel's big topic. Now he has written a play for our theater. Exemplary.
