ERFOLG

In the organizer's words:

SUCCESS
based on the novel of the same name by Lion Feuchtwanger

adapted for the stage by Barbara Sommer and Stefan Bachmann

Munich, early 1920s: Dr. Martin Krüger, progressive director of the Staatsgalerie, acquires objectionable paintings for his museum - a welcome opportunity for the Bavarian government to finally remove the inconvenient contemporary from the scene. A politically motivated trial catapults the innocent man into prison. The 26-year-old graphologist Johanna Krain, first fiancée, then wife of the prisoner, feels the injustice she has experienced like a thorn in her flesh. Her mission is clear: Martin must return to freedom. Johanna begins to fight, gets deeply involved in the thicket of power-political intrigues and soon becomes emotionally entangled in the breeding ground of the Bavarian, beer-loving way of life. She enters into an affair with a big industrialist, sleeps with a shady upstart, and finally connects with an egocentric writer. Everyone promises help in the Krüger case, but fate and the course of time put Johanna to a hard test.

With "Success" we travel into the interior of a society in which one's own career advantage, the demands of offended souls, hatred of neighbors, anger at political dissenters or one's own lack of orientation become the measure of all things. Politics becomes the arena of personal emotionality and individual neediness. This is a perfect target for an unscrupulous person like the nationalist Rupert Kutzner, who successively suspends the rule of law with his "True Germans" and becomes a fatal bearer of hope.

After his production of "Graf Öderland" (invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen 2021), Stefan Bachmann devotes himself to Feuchtwanger's "Erfolg" (Success), a material that dissects in a clear-sighted and astonishingly contemporary way the socio-psychological mechanisms in which democratic structures evaporate.

Artistic direction

Production Stefan Bachmann
Stage Olaf Altmann
Costumes Barbara Drosihn
Choreography and body work Sabina Perry
Composition and musical arrangement Sven Kaiser
Lighting Gerrit Jurda
Dramaturgy Barbara Sommer

Price information:

from 8 € for students