End of Beginnings, ich fühl's! (UA)

Play by Sarah Franke

Hello, hello, turn on your radio.
Is anyone out there?

This “Radiocoaster” is a play. And at the same time, it’s the first broadcast. We’re broadcasting live. We’re broadcasting from different years. We’re broadcasting from the stage.

On air, there’s hosting, readings from archives, Thomas Mann speaking toGerman listeners—and in between: music. Elisabeth Selbert, a native of Kassel and one of the four “mothers” of the Basic Law, fights tirelessly for the wording of Article 3:Men and women have equal rights.

Off the air and on stage, relationships fall apart, stories unfold in parallel—the small lives alongside the great din. Yet the outside world gradually seeps into the studio; stories, fates, and eras overlap, merging into one another. Songs become scenes. Scenes become reality. Reality becomes radio once again. 

Someone found a letter you wrote me on the radio.
A letter. A confession that was meant to be private—and suddenly became public. Love is read aloud. Feelings are broadcast. Family dynamics emerge and crumble amid news reports and jingles. Politics interrupts intimacy. Intimacy infiltrates politics.

Radio, live broadcast.
Radio has always been ambivalent. It was more than entertainment: it was a warning system. A refuge. A messenger of love. Resistance.Radio Free Europe. Censored voices. A mouthpiece for propaganda. And at the same time, the place where a song played that you’ve never forgotten.

This won’t be played on your radio tonight.
This is exactly where the gaps begin. The unbroadcasted—what can only happen in the live space, on our stage.

Dance, dance, dance to the radio.
Joy Division meets Donna Summer. R.E.M. meets Shakespears Sister. Kitsch is taken seriously. 

End of Beginnings, I Feel It!is an evening about time and simultaneity. About love and struggle. About exile and home. About voices that are heard—and those that fade away.

Turn up the volume.
Maybe you’ll hear something you’ve been searching for a long time.

www.staatstheater-kassel.de