Everything in us is burning. At the edges of late capitalism it is clear how thin the veneer which holds civilisation together has become. 17 young people from Bremen pounce on the forgotten stories of buried wars. The clinically clean vector space of the theatre becomes a landscape of ruins. For this reason Child | SOLDIER is outstanding: Exactly worked out, it shows us what a democratically constituted society is hiding behind cynicism or is quietly tolerating. The 17 young people throw their bodies onto the stage in a battle that always turns out to be (has to turn out to be?) a form of tilting against windmills that ends in exhaustion.
Child | SOLDIER draws its dramatic power from the knowledge that the most revolutionary deed possible is to tell it like it is – out loud. And where can that be better done than on the stage? Cleverly arranged texts alternate with moments of quietness. These in-between moments mark the gaps and empty spaces in the system. Using story-telling, documentation and their own expectations the actors dissect the correlations of exploitation between poor and rich countries. What remains are ruins and corpses on the stage of devastation. What remains is also the uneasy feeling that the theatre machine has to be constantly reminded of its social function: to reveal defects and abuses. Child | SOLDIER does this in a brutally, loud, rebellious physical manner. A powerful impulse, a loud heartbeat.
