Ariel Efraim Ashbel and friends My Kingdom for a Joke

Accompanied by live music and featuring improvisation, clowning and sketch comedy , "My Kingdom For a Joke" searches for moments of genuine hilarity. In a simple set with unique costumes, the performers risk everything for a liberating laugh and show how shared amazement can unite us and make the crisis-ridden world lighter for a moment.What wouldn't we give for a good joke? The shirt off our backs, our dignity, the last bit of grant money, our kingdom! Like Shakespeare's anti-hero Richard III, whose famous cry "My kingdom for a horse!" became a symbol of poetic despair, we call upon a joke to help us see the theater as a place of possibility again in a bleak reality."

My Kingdom for a Joke" is a serious examination of entertainment and humor through the lens of contemporary performance. While the tragedies of the world are magnified to infinity and irony and resignation often seem to be the only opposing poles, Ariel Efraim Ashbel and Friends search for a genuine moment of hilarity, for humor as a community-building practice and as a bridge between the individual and the world. In a nod to the sparse stages of stand-up comedy, the set and lighting design are radically reduced, while the costumes are a real eye-catcher. The focus is on the performers' craft: accompanied by live music and using methods such as improvisation, clowning and sketch comedy, the tried-and-tested jokers Thelma Buabeng, Jessica Gadani, Colin Hacklander and Tatiana Saphir approach the audience again and again with their very own contradictions and vulnerabilities, risking everything for a laugh. The possibility (probability!) of failure only makes the joy of it all the greater: in every supposed mistake lies the chance for us to see each other as we really are - and perhaps come a little closer to a shared reality.