Kepler-452 at the "Festival Internationale Neue Dramatik" in Berlin
Berlin is the new international stage of Capital. A book we haven't read yet by the Bologna based collective Kepler-452, the story of the encounter between a theatre company and a group of metalworkers who occupied the factory after the collective dismissal.
The show, written and directed Enrico Baraldi and Nicola Borghesi, and produced by ERT Emilia Romagna Teatro, is guest of the Festival Internationale Neue Dramatik (FIND), a ‘showcase’ of contemporary theatre from around the world organized by Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz – and Kepler-452 is introducing itself to German audiences for the first time.
For several months, Baraldi and Borghesi have shared the struggles of the 422 workers of the GKN company in Campi Bisenzio who were fired with an email communication, sleeping there, taking part in pickets, assemblies, and demonstrations. They have listened and observed, trying from time to time to return to Marx's pages and establish a creative dialogue between Das Kapital - a classic of philosophical and economic literature - and what was happening in the factory, to a group of real persons.
Then their attention focused on three people in particular, who are now on stage with them: Iorio, a maintenance man, Felice, an assembly worker, and Tiziana, a cleaning worker. The result is a performance in which the story of their personal lives is intertwined with a reflection on life, on the dignity of work, on who owns our time. A performance awarded with the Ubu Prize 2023 for ‘best special project’.
Il Capitale is on stage at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz on April 20 and 21 at 6 pm and on April 22 at 8 pm.
Complementing this stage adaptation of Das Kapital, the festival has organized one of the audience discussions/accompanying talks of the shows on program: a German-Italian dialogue on ‘Prospects of Socialisation’ —and on the topicality of the book that lent its title to the play, will follow the performance on April 20.