National Theatre Vienna (Burgtheater Wien)
Egoshooter Michael Kohlhaas
Theatre video, 2013
Director: Peter Raffalt
Stage: Vincent Mesnaritsch
Costumes: Elke Gattinger
Music: Matthias Jakisic
Video: Florian Gruber
Lighting: Marcus Loran
Dramaturgy: Claudia Kaufmann-Freßner
Actors: Anna Hofmann, Anne Stein, Christian Eckstein, Aaron Friesz, Julian von Hansemann, Johannes Hoff, Ferdinand Nowitzky, Konstantin Sieghart
In Heinrich von Kleist’s short story title hero Michael Kohlhaas becomes rabid because he, a horse trader from Brandenburg, has been wronged. At the border crossing with Saxony, the lord of the castle Wenzel von Tronka and his steward, as a pledge for the passage, mark two beautiful horses, which, however, Kohlhaas finds on his return as worthless Schindmähren. Compensation does not exist, the mills of justice grind in the service of the mightier. After Kohlhaas had subsequently lost both wife and servant because of his compensation, he freaks out and begins in the name of justice in the name of justice in the name of justice, a destruction campaign against all who stand in his way in search of his adversary Tronka. He butchered from Wittenberg to Leipzig, to finally draw the short straw.
“Peter Raffalt’s “Junge Burg” production, which premiered in its own version on Sunday night as Ego Shooter – Michael Kohlhaas in the vestibule, offers much for this hair-raising killing spree. The most impressive of these is the three-dimensional computer game interface (across the stage broadside), which the actors play live using black box technology (video: Florian Gruber, stage: Vincent Mesnaritsch). As the camera eye falls through the foliage of the gloomy forest (as if it were Twilight) and created by waving treetops, rain and animated Burgleben “authentic” 16th-century mood.”
(Der Standard)“Peter Raffalt felt as a veteran playmaker for young people, the seductive power of the substance. His Kleist adaptation “Ego Shooter” begins harmless as brought by seven German high school graduates on an educational trip to Vienna. This time around, Raffalt’s talent garden “Junge Burg” is being tested by Aaron Friesz (Kohlhaas), Johannes Hoff (Tronka), Anna Hofmann, Amrei Keul, Larissa Semke, Genet Zegay, Noah Saavedra. Only technical kicks of a video game do not elevate the chuckling business-the-text-anyway seriously. Suddenly, theater. His master: Florian Gruber, video artist. And director Raffalt because he gives the troupe their fun.”
(Wiener Zeitung)
