A play based on interview sequences by Lukas Rietzschel
At an election rally, people meet: politicians and voters, the press and party colleagues, political opponents. Tension is high shortly before the election. There are two promising candidates – the mayor and Samuel W. – and a multitude of questions: "Who is Samuel W.? A thought? An idea? Does Samuel W. represent a place? Or a time? Is he us?"
Commissioned by the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Theater, Lukas Rietzschel has written a play. It asks many questions and consists, as the author states in the foreword, of one hundred conversations. Between January and September 2022, the novelist and playwright, who has lived in Görlitz for several years, conducted these conversations, including in the Neisse city, and one might think—were it not for the adjective "exemplary" in the title—that it undoubtedly takes place in our region. Yes, Lukas Rietzschel does trace the life of a politician born in the GDR, in an area with lignite mines, smog, soot, and grime, with people contemplating whether they must leave their homeland because it is no longer worth living in—but all of this does not exist only here. And then there is this Samuel W., who never appears on stage yet is always present, who becomes a politician and joins an obviously radical party, even though he… or perhaps precisely because he grew up here? "Is he us? One of us?"
How does it happen that one person becomes radicalized while another seeks consensus and reconciliation—that is Lukas Rietzschel's major theme. Now he has written a play for our theater. Exemplary.
This event takes place on 2 dates
