Identitti Rezeptionista

#noveladaptation #identity

Student Nivedita can't believe it: Her professor Saraswati - her role model in identity politics - is white ! Until this news, a new world had opened up for Nivedita, born with an Indian father in Germany, in the seminars of the supposed Person of Color. In the very first class, the professor expelled white students from the room, wrote "Decolonize your soul" on the blackboard, and discussed the origins of and how to deal with identity struggles. And now Saraswati's career is supposed to be built on a big lie? A complex and highly emotional debate erupts: Nivedita posts on Twitter under the pseudonym Identitti, and her friends organize demos against this incredible case of cultural appropriation. Meanwhile, Professor Saraswati continues to think through all the arguments, so that soon no one knows what "Person of Color" actually, really means.

Identitti Rezeptionista is a play about the reception of Mithu Sanyal's novel Identitti, much read, much talked about and also adapted in many theaters, which asked in 2020: who is who and who can speak for whom? It's a question we keep asking ourselves in theater, too: Who can credibly play a white professor who has posed as a person of color? The theater as a cultural institution is also sometimes a powder keg of identity politics, but one that is made for negotiating identity. The production thus invites us to become aware of our own contradictions and to further discuss the political questions surrounding the material.

A transfer of the production from Schauspielhaus Graz.