Ein Volksfeind

The evening involves a decision: should we follow the dignitaries into the foyer, with the promise of free speech (oh yes, for the audience too) and where the first item is to sort out the seating arrangement or should we remain in our seats and listen to the speech made by Tomas Stockmann, the doctor at the local health baths who has become an enemy of the people? Both gatherings get heated. Where does debate stop and quarrelling begin? What is permitted in pursuit of the truth?

Ibsen wrote the play in 1882 and the issues it covers remain topical.  Stage writer Dietmar Dath and director Stefan Pucher make that clear in their production at the Schauspielhaus Zurich, because they bring the play into the contemporary world through content and the use of language. Mineral resources are leased; news is not published via the local newspaper but via the public Democracy-Portal “DEMOnline” written by the blogger Hovstad (Tabea Bettin). Public Relations or information, publish or withhold information? Every decision is political – but in our real-time, wired democracy decisions must be reached more quickly.

Dr Tomas Stockmann (Markus Scheumann) who works at the local health baths wants to post his alarming findings online, and he sees doing so as perfectly straightforward in the “most progressive local elections of all time” with its digital networks, easy-listening background music and communal health prevention. But who decides what is published, and when? His brother, mayor Peter Stockmann (Robert Hunger-Bühler) also masters the new communication technologies and skilfully uses open governance to his own advantage. It’s powerful stuff, in particular the way in which Markus Scheumann instils the struggle between conflicting principles with such energy.

Dietmar Dath brings the play fully up to date and, thanks to Barbara Ehnes’ antiseptic set design, director Stephan Pucher coldly places every scene under the microscope in the on-stage test laboratory. The characters are presented to the audience in the same way as the model of their spa town that occupies the centre stage is presented to them. The background is gloomy, sodden and menacing. Under the hi-tech surface nothing has changed – a play for the e-democracy of the 21^st century.

Tobias Gerosa

• distrib

  With
  Tabea Bettin, Sofia Elena Borsani, Robert Hunger-Bühler, Isabelle Menke, Matthias Neukirch, Nicolas Rosat, Markus Scheumann, Siggi Schwientek

  Music Live
  Becky Lee Walters
  

  Video Live
  Ute Schall
  

  Stage design
  Barbara Ehnes

  Lights
  Frank Bittermann

  Costumes
  Annabelle Witt

  Music
  Christopher Uhe

  Dramaturgy
  Andreas Karlaganis

  Production
  Schauspiehau Zurich

   

   

• link
  Trailer Ein Volksfeind ↓