Stefan Schütz

The Chief Robot tells of a time long ago, the Human Era, in which there still existed the illusionary condition of love: In the first, third and fifth picture, A (poet) and B (muse) meet each other. A tries to orchestrate the endgame of their relationship, in which he pushes B into the arms of her lover, X (film director). In the meantime, X waits for a message from his beloved, B, in pictures two and four. The Chief Robot, however, wants to and must refuse X his intermediary services. So, in the sixth picture, A and X conspire against B. A doesn’t want B any more. X wants B. But B cannot decide. The conspiracy fails and in picture seven, the two men fight their last fight with each other and with the woman, until X rapes B with a bottle. The brutal act is followed by the birth of two robots, who now try to simulate the human act of love, but they don’t feel anything. In two epic insertions after pictures five and seven, the myth of the Minotaur is turned into the history of a cyclist’s widow, who, after her husband has a deadly accident, has a child with his bike.
The people in this play have lost their identity, and the male protagonists in particular have degenerated into masks of patriarchal violence. The Muse seems to be the victim until she herself enacts a simulacrum of violence and dependence. There where we want to feel the strongest form of humanity lies the sting of betrayal of human existence. Love, an illusion which covers up the exchangeability of the modern human, patriarchal violence and structures of power.