Graubünden, the year 1812. A dull room, with ashes in its center, dead crows on the ground. People sit there, dressed in rotting robes. They sweat, have swollen bellies.
It is the end of time, the certainty of ruin hangs in the air. There are talks about the state of the world, reduced, scarce, condensed, like the space into which the dead crows are falling, again and again. The fart is all that is left to the human being: flatulence temporarily creates a sense of self-identity.
Temporarily, just until the next crow falls: then it is again as it was before. Nothing is expected, nothing will be heard. What remains is the certainty of the end of time.
Foraminifere is a theatrical apocalyptic vision that does not deny its role models, but has retained its autonomy. The text evokes a claustrophobic narrowness and an atmosphere (time and location are arbitrary) which is difficult to escape. The language, too, reminds us, in its limitedness, of the narrowness of the situation, similar to a litany which increases until it opens up into sacred repetition.
Alexander Müller-Elmau
Foraminifere
Einakter
7 Darsteller, 1 Dek
UA: 08.05.1994 · Staatstheater Stuttgart · Directed by: Hans-Ulrich Becker
Translated into: French