Helmut Krausser

Afrika (Freitag)
4 D, 6 H, 1 Dek
UA: 16.03.07 · Theater Oberhausen · Directed by: Katja Lauken
"The present is abysmal, but someday it will get better, perhaps..."

But before this healing exhalation can take place, there is the sarcastic swan song of an artistic enterprise, dissolved into its egomaniac vanity. In this play, Helmut Krausser brings to life artistic geniuses and their exploiters, in a language that is powerful and to the point.

Lucy, around 50, begins by carrying the arrogant standoffishness of the art industry, including its audience, to the extreme. She opens a new gallery, on the fifth floor and without an elevator, a real hole in the wall. As is fitting, she does not hang up her paintings, but places them on the floor. "Now visitors can look down on art, as they have always wanted to do." Two artists vie for favor, not without fighting spirit, and not without the brutal exploitation of their desire for love. Two art critics play the game of "good critic - bad critic". Everyone and everything becomes a commodity, even art itself. The fight for art is nothing but a manifestation of arbitrariness. The only one who does not want to participate is the sprayer Eva—the new discovery, whose pictures are quickly snapped up.

Under this exhibitionist extravagance, the real dramas play themselves out. There is the struggle for existence, which does not just mean the increase of one’s own market value, but rather the struggle for the justification of one's own existence, as an artist or as a human being. And there is the struggle for identity, for self-assertion. How much of a human being is left over, in a world where everything serves the personal brand? Philosophies of life and survival are at stake. "Dreams and needs. And in between them, the playing field."