Rimini Protokoll

Within the current public debate about German-language theatre a noteworthy trend is the tendency to reduce the diversity and richness in the field to an assumed dichotomy, or even a rigid antagonism, between the socalled ›dramatic‹ and ›postdramatic‹ theatre. In addition, current theatre discourse exhibits remarkable instances of grands récits, metanarratives and generalizations. The following paper, by contrast, focuses on the analysis
of one »Theatre of Everyday Experts« production by Rimini Protokoll: Black Tie (2008). By linking this piece to the tradition of the monodrama, this paper demonstrates how Black Tie employs a number of literary techniques. In so doing it contests the recent claim that so-called ›postdramatic‹ theatre – including Rimini Protokoll’s productions – exits the realm of literature and is responsible for a »Deliterarisierung« (diminution of
the literariness) of theatre. At the same time the close reading of Black Tie highlights Rimini Protokoll’s substantial transformation of the structures of
communication between stage and audience through its »Theatre of Everyday Experts«.

In der aktuellen Debatte um das deutschsprachige Theater der Gegenwart sind Tendenzen zu einer Dichotomisierung des Diskurses nicht zu übersehen, die die außerordentliche Vielfältigkeit der aktuellen Theaterlandschaft im Rahmen eines angenommenen Gegensatzes, ja einer behaupteten
Frontstellung von ›dramatischem‹ und ›postmodernem‹ Theater zu verhandeln sucht. Der ebenfalls zu beobachtenden Tendenz, über einzelne Vertreter des Gegenwartstheaters stark verallgemeinernd zu sprechen, setzt der nachfolgende Aufsatz eine genaue Auseinandersetzung mit dem zur Gruppe der  Expertenstücke im engeren Sinne gehörenden Produktion
Black Tie (2008) von Rimini Protokoll entgegen. Dabei zeigt der detaillierte Blick auf dieses, die lange Tradition des Monodramas fortschreibende Stück, dass im Fall dieser Produktion von einer beschworenen »Deliterarisierung des Theaters« durch ›postdramatisches‹ Theater nicht gesprochen werden kann. Zugleich ist zu erkennen, wie Rimini Protokoll mit dem Expertentheater die Kommunikationssituation im Theater einer weitreichenden, bemerkenswerten Veränderung unterzieht.

Daniel Wetzel/Rimini Protokoll in a conversation with Florian Malzacher about differences and similarities between art and politics in Rimini Protokoll's practice referring to a variety of other artists' work. A fundamental question that runs through the conversation is whether theatre could be more than merely a space of representation and critique.

Il lavoro di ricerca illustra alcuni esempi di una tendenza riscontrata nel panorama teatrale contemporaneo degli ultimi anni: l’inclusione di elementi non lavorati e trapiantati dalla realtà all’interno della drammaturgia dello spettacolo. Questo fenomeno, salutato nel 2004 dalla rivista tedesca «Theatre der Zeit» come l’inizio di un nuovo reality trend sul palcoscenico, vede nel collettivo tedesco dei Rimini Protokoll uno dei suoi più importanti fondatori e, nella produzione complessiva di quest’ultimo, un imprescindibile termine di paragone per provare a riconoscere le caratteristiche del fenomeno anche in Italia.
La grande varietà di manifestazioni del teatro contemporaneo italiano non ha consentito di affrontare con attenzione tutti gli artisti che in qualche modo potrebbero essere ammessi all’interno di un discorso sul reality trend. La scelta del campione si è basata, allora, proprio sul riconoscimento delle differenze piuttosto che delle analogie, partendo dall’assunto che Reality Theatre – secondo l’accreditata definizione formulata da Meg Mumford e Ulrike Garde – non è un genere o uno stile specifico, ma una definizione-ombrello che denota una modalità performativa e, come tale, attraversa generi e stili diversi.
Dopo aver selezionato un campione indicativo, composto da sei performance presentate in Italia tra il 2011 e il 2014 (Grimmless di ricci/forte, The Walk di Cuocolo/Bosetti, Nella tempesta dei Motus, Pinocchio di Babilonia Teatri, Ultimi di Dynamis Teatro e Remote Milano dei Rimini Protokoll) il lavoro di analisi del contesto produttivo, del testo drammatico e del testo spettacolare di ciascun elemento del campione ha consentito di portare alla luce alcuni spunti di riflessione che hanno permesso di ottenere un quadro del fenomeno del reality trend, per arrivare infine a definire quali parametri determinano l’”irruzione del reale” nelle performance teatrali.
In una fase successiva all’analisi del campione, sono stati cinque i parametri di valutazione del grado di realtà formulati: presenza di materiale biografico di attori o non attori; l’utilizzo di “spazi trovati”; la condizione di “spettatore emancipato” prefigurata da Jacques Rancière; presenza di “parole trovate”; presenza di “oggetti trovati”, personali o semplicemente interpretati nella loro facile leggibilità.
Dal confronto tra il campione e la presenza o meno di tali parametri, i risultati ottenuti, illustrati e commentati, sono stati trasferiti all’interno di una tabella, chiarificando così, in termini quantitativi e qualitativi, il tipo di legame tra il reale, inteso come materialità extraestetica, e l’opera performativa.


Renata Savo, 'Teatri del reale nella realtà del teatro: il reality trend in Italia', tesi di laurea, Università degli Studi “La Sapienza” di Roma, Facoltà di Filosofia, Lettere, Scienze Umanistiche, Studi Orientali, corso di laurea in Spettacolo teatrale, cinematografico, digitale: teorie e tecniche, a. a. 2014-2015, rel. Valentina Valentini

Analiza procesu produkcji spektaklu-gry "Situation Rooms" berlińskiego kolektury Rimini Protokoll. Książka wydana przez Akademię Teatralną im. A. Zelwerowicza w Warszawie i Instytut Teatralny im. Zbigniewa Raszewskiego w Warszawie.
Recenzje wydawnicze: prof. Tomasz Kubikowski i prof. Dariusz Kosiński
Recenzje prasowe:
Weronika Szczawińska: http://www.teatr-pismo.pl/czytelnia/2156/rewizja_pewnej_fascynacji/
Klaudia Laś: http://www.grotowski.net/performer/performer-16/krytyczka-uczestniczaca

This thesis aims to investigate the aesthetic and critic potentialities related to the presence of the actors of everyday life in the context of contemporary performing arts, addressing creations produced in Brazil and Europe at the beginning of 21st century. The term includes people who do not necessarily have artistic training and are invited to take part in current creations from a self- referential perspective. We start from the hypothesis that the incorporation of actors of everyday life collaborate to change the “regime of visibility” (RANCIÈRE, 2009) of bodies and subjectivities in the context of performing  arts, by broadening the possibilities about who acts in theatre and dance. From the dialogue with the concepts of theatres of the real (SAISON, 1998; FERNANDES, 2010; MARTIN, 2013), expanded theatricality (DIÉGUEZ, 2014; SÁNCHEZ, 2015), and audience theatricality (CORNAGO, 2015), this research focuses on the analysis of the trajectory and of specific works of artists from the contemporary scene who stand out by their work with actors of everyday life, such as French director Jérôme Bel, the Brazilian Cia. Hiato, the Swiss-German collective Rimini Protokoll, and Catalan director Roger Bernat. From this analysis, we outline some some potentialities linked to their works, focusing on the subversion of traditional theatrical codes of representation, the intensification of experience sharing with the spectator, the approach of the performing arts with the fields of reality and everyday life, the questioning of issues relating to otherness, the irruption of a theatricality of the collective, the projection of mirrors with the audience and its participation in the work, and, finally, the dialogue with the context in which the spectacle takes place. That kind of participation reflects a specific way with which theatre and dance have been working their language expansion. And it shows how the presence of everyday actors collaborates to transform the “ways of doing” and the “ways of thinking” (RANCIÈRE, 2009) of the contemporary performing arts.

Home Visit Europe by Rimini Protokoll is a performance without performers, only an audience taking part in a game in a private home. As such, it is one example of the participatory strategies that currently have a strong presence in contemporary theatre practices changing how we, as audience, engage with theatre. It is emblematic then that 'participation' is an emergent concept in theatre and performance studies with a rapidly growing body of work on the topic. This article sets out to explore how the idiom of the popular can shed light on some of the central issues in the discourse on participation: that is to say, the relationship between the artist and the audience, authorship, and the relationship between the aesthetic and the social dimension of participatory work. I will be using Home Visit Europe in the context of Bergen International Festival of 2015 as a case study, drawing on an audience research approach combined with a critical reading of the work. The conceptually stringent and tightly ordered dramaturgy of Home Visit Europe, where the audience take turns responding to a set of questions and tasks, demonstrates how problematic the concept of participation can be to describe theatre practices, as the term risks overstating the influence that the audience have over the aesthetic product. In this sense, contemporary participatory strategies resemble popular theatre's conflict between established aesthetics, critical standards and popular grounding. A resemblance that brings the paper right to the core of the discourse on participation, which concerns the ideological ramifications of the 'participatory turn'.

https://neofelis-verlag.de/verlagsprogramm/wissenschaft/theater-performance/1025/buehnen-der-altermundialitaet?number=9783958083288

=== Forthcoming with Neofelis Verlag Berlin (beginning of 2021) ===

[English Title: Stages of altermondiality. From world-picture to spatial theatre practices]
Phd thesis on spatial thought under the conditions of a (post-)globalized 'planetary condition' in contemporary performing arts as well as philosophy. The dissertation deals with the question which kind(s) of stages are being challenged or asked for by a heterogeneous thinking of the world that can no longer guarantee a stable picture or figuration (if it ever could...).
This is examined via works of Rimini Protokoll, Antonia Baehr, Romeo Castellucci, Tino Sehgal, Walid Raad and Kate McIntosh. Larger investigations on the specific notions of the term 'world' and the importance of spatiality/spatializations in the thinking of Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault and Jean-Luc Nancy build the theoretical counterpart. The dissertation finishes its argument with a view on stages (of theatre) as part of intertwined worlds that do negotiate their respective singularity as well as their tangency - a non-statuary state that is called 'altermondiality'.

Wenn Arbeitslose und Migrantenkinder, behinderte, straffällige oder todkranke Menschen auf der Bühne nicht mehr von Schauspielern dargestellt werden, sondern als sie selbst auftreten, wird ein politischer Anspruch geltend gemacht, der darauf zielt, die antike Idee des Theaters als Raum des Öffentlichen postdramatisch wiederzubeleben. Das ambivalente Versprechen eines solchen Theaters ist das einer sozialen Heterotopie, eines anderen Raumes der Gesellschaft, in dem soziale Grenzen und Normen, Fragen der In- und Exklusion sowie der Gemeinschaftskonstitution ästhetisch verhandelt werden. Das Buch setzt sich mit Arbeiten von Künstlern wie Christoph Schlingensief, Rimini Protokoll, Volker Lösch, Romeo Castellucci und Ligna auseinander und bezieht diese auf Überlegungen Jacques Rancières, Giorgio Agambens oder Jean-Luc Nancys. Es geht nicht zuletzt um ein räumliches Denken des Politischen.

Departing from the contemporary discussion of a return of "reality" on stage the article develops that it is rather illusion which is newly discovered. After a general introduction readings of Rimini Protokoll's legendary "Cargo Sophia..." as well as of works by Walid Ra'ad are discussed.

How can we rethink the importance of voice in performance? How can we understand voice simultaneously as music and text, as sound and body, or as both personal and political?

This book explores voice across genres, media and cultures, inviting the reader to reassess established ways of analysing, enjoying and listening to voice. Using a wide range of case studies integrated with critical and philosophical frameworks, it makes audible the multiple ways in which voice contributes to how we perform identities. From opera and musical theatre to live art and immersive audio walks, Konstantinos Thomaidis presents voice as plural, elusive and ripe for reinvention.

Performative practice is based on the presence of at least a single performer and a single spectator. The presence (Brook 1998), mainly tied into the bodies of the subjects involved, becomes a determining factor for the construction and circulation of meaning, a fundamental element of the embodied statement, where the body acts as the instance of the enunciation as well as the statement (Nancy 2000). What happens when a theatre performance without actors is performed? A new aesthetic emerges, consisting of interactions and transformations, the possibility of cooperation/interaction between contradictory elements. The analysis of two contemporary plays, Perhaps all the dragons of the theatre collective Berlin and Nachlass pièce sans personnes of Rimini Protokoll, will give us opportunity to discuss the growing phenomenon of the presentation, and representation, docu-fiction in the theatre, that is, when the technology generates the appearance (Schein) of an actual presence, without, however, bringing what is actually a manifestation (Erscheinung) – bodies and objects, as it is currently its present (Fischer-Lichte 2008).

Trials and theatre plays share affinities on many levels. They both occur in a specific time and place, they both consist of performing and spectating, and they are both concerned with processing and understanding what we call ‘experience’. In the German-speaking lands – where Schiller’s highly influential concept of the “Gerichtsbarkeit der Bühne” (jurisdiction of the stage) inaugurated a connection between the aesthetic, the moral, and even political role of theatre in the late 18th century – trial, interrogation and punishment scenes have recurrently been integrated and reflected upon in dramatic texts. Prominent examples include Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s “Götz von Berlichingen”, Heinrich von Kleist’s “Der zerbrochene Krug”, Peter Weiss’ “Die Ermittlung”, as well as more recent endeavours, such as Ferdinand von Schirach’s “Terror” and Milo Rau’s re-enactments.
By discussing and analysing the way in which these and other plays have encouraged reflections on legal processes and the institution of law on the German stage from the 18th century to the present day, this conference sets out to examine how literary discourses on justice have evolved in different historical and epistemological contexts. In particular, it will help define and assess how law is interpreted and applied in the texts, how the relations between law, society and power are outlined, and to what extent the staging of trials serves as a dramaturgic tool to comment on (and possibly criticise) contemporary legal practices.
Building on the “performative turn” in recent Law and Literature scholarship, contributions will offer in-depth textual analyses of exemplary courtroom dramas in historical or comparative perspective, as well as addressing more general aspects, such as the (a)symmetries between the dramatic urgency of legal processes and performance, the relations between fiction and reality in documentarian theatre, and the strategies with which authors and theatre practitioners raise the spectators’ awareness on juridical and moral questions.

ARTÍCULO PUBLICADO EN LA REVISTA ASSAIG DE TEATRE (BARCELONA), N. 65, JULIO DE 2008, en el marco del ciclo de teatro contemporáneo "Radicals Lliure" presentado en el Teatre Lliure, Barcelona.

"Las propuestas, entre teatro, poesía, danza, música, cine y documental, abarcaron una temática común: jugar con los nuevos límites de la representación, saliendo de sus fronteras y abriéndose paso a una nueva forma de representar, de recibir y de expresarse. A través de temas como la inestabilidad emocional, el horror de la violencia banalizada por los medios de comunicación o las luchas por el dinero y el poder, esta generación dirty e intranquila representa las nuevas vanguardias de este siglo nuevo..."
Rimini Protokoll / Rodrigo García / Angélica Lidell

Home Visit Europe by Rimini Protokoll is a performance without performers, only an audience taking part in a game in a private home. As such, it is one example of the partici­patory strategies that currently have a strong presence in contemporary theatre practices changing how we, as audience, engage with theatre. It is emblematic then that ‘participation’ is an emergent concept in theatre and performance studies with a rapidly growing body of work on the topic. This article sets out to explore how the idiom of the popular can shed light on some of the central issues in the discourse on participa­tion: that is to say, the relationship between the artist and the audience, author­ship, and the relationship between the aesthetic and the social dimension of partici­patory work. I will be using Home Visit Europe in the context of Bergen Interna­tional Festival of 2015 as a case study, drawing on an audience research approach com­bined with a critical reading of the work. The conceptually...

The essay is the author’s relation from participation in the work on a multimedia production of the Rimini Protokoll theatre collective, Situation Rooms (2013), to which ‘experts in everyday life’ were invited in the roles of narrators of their own video tales. The author, convinced that the value of a work of art depends on the method it was created, describes the organization of the big-budget production and its artistic implications. As points of comparison, she then gives examples of Polish documentaries also created with the participation of their protagonists, the creators of which attempted to deal in various ways with the aporia inherent in the documentary film genre.

(2013) dünyadaki silahların rolü üzerinde duruyor 2. Rimini Protokoll'ün önceki eserleri dikkate alındığında bu alışılmadık biçimde somut bir sosyal konu gibi görünüyor. Situations Rooms'a (Durum Odaları) giden yol başlangıçta içerikten ziyade biçimsel olarak belirlenmişti. Belirli bir tiyatro modeli geliştirmek istedik, oyunun konusu daha sonra belli oldu. Yola çıkış noktamız, daha önceki yıllarda gerçekleştirdiğimiz farklı sesli (audio) turlar ve sonrasında Aberystwyth'de (Galler) bir iPad üzerindeki filmlerin rehberliğinde şehir turu yaptığınız Outdoors (Dışarısı 2011) 3 adlı bir video turu gibi projelerimizdi. İzlediğiniz video tam olarak yürümekte olduğunuz yerde çekilmişti, prensibimiz de buydu zaten. Videoyu çeken, sizinle konuşan ve sizi yönlendiren kişi hikâyenin kahramanıydı ve on üç bölüm eşzamanlı olarak tek seferde çekilirken

Neste capítulo, proponho uma aproximação do conceito de dramaturgia ao de dispositivo cênico. O termo tem sido utilizado para designar criações pautadas pela elaboração de regras/procedimentos simples, passíveis de serem realizadas/ativadas por qualquer um. Investigo como essa lógica artística favorece o descentramento da presença do artista e da ideia de autoria em prol de uma ampliação sobre quem pode atuar nas artes cênico-performativas atuais. A partir do estudo de obras do diretor catalão Roger Bernat e do coletivo alemão Rimini Protokoll, centradas na participação de espectadores em situação autorreferencial e cotidiana, discuto as potencialidades críticas deste recurso, que permite uma intensificação sobre a reflexividade acerca dos modos de subjetivação produzidos na interação entre participantes e dispositivos.

For the 100 Years of Now Journal Sarah Bay-Cheng attended the US premier of “Top Secret International (State 1)” in New York. Beyond the Rimini Protokoll production itself the professor of theatre studies turns her attention to cyber attacks, fake news, and the image of the intelligence services. An exploration of the vulnerability of the algorithms and the contemporary crisis of democracy – in the theatre and in real life.

Reviewed by/Rezensiert von: Emily Goodling in: Monatshefte für deutschsprachige Literatur und Kultur 116.1 (2024) March 2024, p. 183-185.

Das vorliegende Buch setzt die Überlegungen fort, die in den Studien "Die Entweltlichung der Bühne. Zur Mediologie des Theaters der klassischen Episteme" (2015) und  „Verweltlichung der Bühne? Zur Mediologie des Theaters der Moderne“ (2019) vorgestellt wurden. Der vorherige Band ist den Theateravantgarden des 20. Jahrhunderts gewidmet; das neue Buch nimmt die vier zentralen Versuche der beiden letzten Jahrzehnte in den Blick: Rimini Protokoll, Falk Richter, René Pollesch und Milo Rau. Sie knüpfen an das Vorhaben der klassischen Avantgarden an und versuchen, deren uneingelöste Zielsetzung einer Überwindung des Zeichenregimes der Repräsentation im Theater mittels neuer und radikalisierter Strategien zu verwirklichen.
Es geht aber nicht nur um eine Rekonstruktion der Strategien zur Etablierung eines „Neuen Welttheaters“. Vielmehr werden die Punkte ausgewiesen, an denen sie fehlschlagen. Mit anderen Worten: Es geht in der vorliegenden Studie um die Fortdauer jenes Repräsentationsmodells, wie es sich im 18. Jahrhundert herausgebildet hatte, bis ins Theater der Neo-Avantgarden.

Sahneye bir adam çıkar ve tavuklarla ilgili bazı slaytlar gösterir. Derin altlık sistemleri, yemleme ile ilgili anahtar konular, zararlı kontrolü, kesim konuları hakkında konuşur. Dinleyiciler afallamış veya eğlenmiş, üç dört tanesi ise sinirlenmiştir. Bir saatlik sunumdan sonra sıra, kümes hayvancılığı ve tiyatroda temsil hakkındaki sorulara gelir. Bununla birlikte Giessen Uygulamalı Tiyatro Çalışmaları Enstitüsü'nün prova sahnesindeki adam, oradaki herkesin tamamen farklı bir şeyler, yani gerçek bir kişi yerine gerçek bir performans, beklediğinin gerçekten de farkında mıdır? Seyirciler ise Heller Bey'in kümes hayvancılığı konusunda hakiki bir uzman olduğundan ve rol yapmadığından gerçekten de emin midir? 1997 tarihli Peter Heller spricht über Geflügelhaltung (Peter Heller Kümes Hayvancılığı hakkında Konuşuyor) eseri Rimini Protokoll tiyatrosunun prototipik kökeni olmaya adaydır. Fikir Giessen'de bir öğrenci barında, geniş bir masa etrafında, bira ve şnitzel eşliğinde ortaya çıkmıştır. Zürih'teki F+F sanat okulundan Hessen'deki bu küçük kasabaya yeni gelmiş olan Stefan Kaegi hali hazırda gerçekten kümes hayvancılığı yapan birisini beraberinde getirmiştir. Aslında, 1982 yılında Andrzej Wirth tarafından kurulmuş olan enstitüde öğrenilecek bir şeyler olup olmadığını görmek için sadece altı aylığına gelmiştir. Burası diğerlerinin yanı sıra René Pollesch, She She Pop, Showcase Beat Le Mot ve Gob Squad'ın (bazı üyelerinin) geleneksel devlet destekli tiyatroya meydan okumak veya onu baltalamak üzere ortaya çıktığı yer olmasından dolayı muhafazakar Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung gazetesi daha sonra burayı "Alman tiyatrosundaki en büyük şer kaynağı" olarak tanımlamıştır. Uygulamalı Tiyatro Çalışmaları Enstitüsü, tiyatro teorisini ve pratiğini birleştiren ve her şeyin ötesinde kendisini çağdaş ve deneysel tiyatro biçimlerine adayan Almanca dilindeki tek üniversite bölümüdür ve bu anlamda tek olmaya hala devam etmektedir. Bu bağlamda Peter Heller hızlıca üretilmiş bir deney, çalışmaları aracılığıyla sürekli olarak tiyatronun rahatsız edilmesiyle muhatap olmak zorunda kalanları rahatsız etmeye yönelik tasarlanmış teatral bir oyundur. Teatral konfeksiyondur. Stefan Kaegi ve (Kaegi ile aynı yıl Giessen'e gelmiş olan) Bernd Ernst için kara kutunun bir temsil mekanizması olarak ne kadar güçlü olduğuna ve bu kutunun içine koyulan herhangi bir şeyin ne ölçüde kendiliğinden tiyatro haline geldiğine ve bunların yanı sıra kara kutunun görüntüsünün içine koyulan şey aracılığıyla nasıl değiştiğine dair bir dizi sorgulamanın ilkidir. Peter Heller'ı, Bernd Ernst ve Stefan Kaegi tarafından sahnelenen ve safkan bir Danua cinsi köpeği ve nörotik bir ufo bilimcisini konu alan yapımlar takip etmiştir. 1999 yılında kendilerini Hygiene Heute (eski püskü Alman tiyatrosuna karşı Günümüzde Hijyen) olarak adlandırıp, Staatstheater Darmstadt'ın Cutting Edge Festivali için, ilk uzun metrajlı şovları olan Training 747'yi (747 Eğitimi) üretmişlerdir. Eser efsanevi iki uçak inişi arasında gizemli paralellikler kuran karmaşık ve şakacı bir hikayedir. Bu inişler II. Dünya Savaşı'nda Joseph Beuys'un bombardıman uçağının

Within the sphere of contemporary performative theatre – where the text cedes its leading role as bearer of the author’s message, in favour of the equivalence of various expressive codes – lies the work of Rimini Protokoll: a German team of author-directors that has been active in Europe for more than fifteen years with traditional and interactive theatre, installations, sound and radio plays. Rimini Protokoll’s work is also an expression of German documentary theatre, which reflects on the problematic nature of history by focusing on unresolved issues in the present. In this framework, this article proposes an analysis of Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 & 2, an example of a performance that is centred on a burning contemporary topic: the end of the copyright on Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the subsequent problem of its reprint. On the stage there are six “experts” – not professional actors – who examine their personal relationship with the book and most of all investigate its influence on the present. This starting-point is an opportunity for a wider, more articulated reflection on social and historical issues that go beyond Germany in the Nazi period, but spread across time and space. The urgency is not the reconstruction of the past, but its repercussion on the present. The performance is furthermore a reflection on the role of books in the collective imagination and on their connection with other media.

Prometheus in Athens is an extraordinary performance of Rimini Protokoll given in Athens Theatre Festival, on July 15th 2010. For the German group that was the first time for a confrontation with an ancient drama, and the result was remarkable. 103 people, a statistical sample of the city, perform the Chorus of Experts of the everyday. After presentation (name, profession, district of residence), each one chooses a colour and a character from the Aeschylean tragedy (Prometheus, Iò, Kratos, Bia), then explains the choice - why personal feelings and thoughts seem to be so close to the chosen character. Further on, they have to answer yes/no to many questions about important themes inspired by the tragedy (power, family, work, rights, crisis). The Athenians have got the possibility to rediscover themselves in the stage as a mirror. Aim of this paper is to point out the original perspective of Rimini Protokoll projects, their theatre of Reality – reality infact is always the frame of RP’ theatrical  experiments. First the paper focuses on the Athenian performance, displaying its context and criticalities, press and public feedback. Two years later (May 2012), the format has been presented in Piccolo Teatro in Milan, slightly changed, and it has been very interesting to compare both performances.

In der Theaterwissenschaft ist die Verbingung zwischen dem theatralischen Archiv und ihrer möglichen Rolle in der Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit auf der Bühne schon seit einigen Jahren ein häufig diskutiertes Thema gewesen. Obwohl einige Kritiker behaupten, dass das Theater von einer inhärenten Kurzlebigkeit geprägt sei, die keine Spuren hinterlasse und das Archivieren des Theaters ausschliesse, lassen Theater und Performance tatsächlich nicht nur verschiedene archivierbare Spuren (wie z.B. Texte, Filme und Bilder) hinterher, sondern auch gestische Spuren ihrer Existenz in den Körpern von Schauspielern und Künstlern.

Im Jahre 2007 hat das Theaterkollektiv Rimini Protokol eine Inszenierung der berühmten Zürcher Uraufführung von Friedrich Dürrenmatts Der Besuch der alten Dame als ihren neuesten Thema ausgewählt. Statt einer einfachen Wiederholung der Uraufführung zu inszenieren, versuchte das Kollektiv „von den Rändern her die Umrisse der Inszenierung“ zu rekonstruieren. Laut dem Kollektiv war die davon entstandenen Inszenierung „eine Rekonstruktion der Uraufführung von 1956 und dem, was rund um das Theater geschah, davor und danach, am selben Ort mit Beteiligten von damals, 11 Kindern, 46 lebensgrossen Schwarzweissfotos und einem Musiker“.

In meinem Vortrag zeige ich inwiefern die greifbare und konkrete Spuren der Vergangenheit die Rekonstruktion dieser Vergangenheit auf der Bühne ermöglichen. Insbesondere werde ich die Ergänzung bzw. Unterminierung dieser Spuren durch ihre Auseinandersetzing mit den lebendigen Körpern und Gesten der Schauspieler untersuchen. Damit demonstriere ich wie die Dürrenmatt-Inszenierung von Rimini-Protokol die Spuren der Vergangenheit lebendig macht, und zwar nicht nur durch die Gegenwärtigkeit der Vorstellung selbst, sondern auch mit einem Blick auf die Zukunft. Die Gruppe verwendet die sterbende Spuren eines wachsenden Archivs um unser Verständnis von vergangenen, gegenwärtigen und zukünftigen Inszenierungen zu beeinflussen bzw. zu verändern. Auf diese Art und Weise werde ich zeigen inwiefern die Arbeitspraxis von Rimini-Protokol nicht nur eine Befragung der ontologische Rolle der Uraufführung hervorbringt, sondern auch wie die theatralische Vergangenheit durch ihre gegenwärtige Rekonstruktion die theatralische Gegenwärt und Zukunft spukt und beeinflusst.

This essay considers Rimini Protokoll’s audio tour 50 Aktenkilometer (50 Kilometers of Files), a piece that allowed a mobile audience to listen to audio files about the East Ger-man Stasi while walking through the streets of Berlin-Mitte in 2011. The tour included a broad range of aural material, ranging from Stasi victims reading from files compiled about themselves in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), to authentic extracts from a Stasi telephone centre and interviews with those affected by the Stasi. The essay asks what the project and its diversity of documentary and first-hand sources sought to achieve with its use of its everyday ›experts‹, and whether its treatment of the Stasi as GDR institution could be considered politically problematic.