Archive 2013 This edition is closed and no longer updated.

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  • Vote for “Radau!” / “Raising Hell!”


    In more than one sense “Raising Hell!” is a discovery – as a stage play and also as a rediscovery of an author whose work for children is relatively unknown. Walter Benjamin wrote ” Raising Hell” as a radio play for children in 1932. Even then it was unconventional, not only because it was so experimental but because of the quality of the language and the intense demands it made on the limits of radio and how to make radio technique visible.

    This production translates these challenges onto the stage. At first the characters appear as radio announcers. In order to make their broadcast believable they dress up and play out the story of Kasperl’s adventurous flight. The way they use objects and instruments to create the various different atmospheres demonstrates their seemingly inexhaustible inventiveness. The most powerful moments in the show are those when music is used. This is particularly true of Anton Berman who gives us musical fireworks in the role of a taxi driver having to play the piano for his life. Thanks to the director and the actors “Raising Hell!” is a breathless, fast moving, comically anarchic celebration which will give huge pleasure to both children and adults.

    The direct encounter with these imaginative performers, the inventive scenes and ingenious costumes never allow us to think that we are merely witnessing a live radio play. Instead of that the performers take the audience on a wild car chase “par excellence”.  

     Andrea Zagorski