Johann Jakob Wurster

Situational dialogue will outlive modern tastes and every fashion in theatre: the verbal reactions of the heroes and heroines, the utterances on the way to their goal, the inconsistencies, the ambiguities, they interest me. As little as possible, as much as necessary… in the age of overstimulating ‘information’, of ‘compilations’, of constantly available pictures, theatre comes into its own: stories unfolding ten, twenty metres from the onlooker, breathing together, experiencing things together, it’s astonishing. It is precisely the imperfect, human moments that are its strength. What is more exciting than watching an actor in the ‘crucial moment’, the moment of decision in which time seems to stand still: ‘Should I risk it or shouldn’t I?’ All that is ephemeral, fleeting and indefinable in the process. Three tasks, and only one sentence of dialogue to do it in! The pure performance of the theatrical apparatus often hinders precisely this moment of theatre… Text as simple background noise, as a digital layer of information, as a language-destroying statement of intent, that was never my thing.
Theatre has to burn without burning out, it has to hurt without hurting the actors. (Johann Jakob Wurster)
Fitzfinger ab geht er! received the 1997 Grabbe Prize.