KATZELMACHER

What if racism is suddenly sitting in your living room?

They are stuck in the provinces and want to leave. They can’t live with or without each other. They eye each other and tear each other apart. Their boredom, envy and money worries feed their prejudices. Until their aggression is unleashed on Jorgos, who came to Bavaria from Greece as a guest worker. In “Katzelmacher”, Fassbinder portrayed the social and cultural struggles of a suburban neighborhood in Bavaria at the end of the 1960s.

In his productions, Emre Akal creates associative artificial worlds together with the artist duo Mehmet & Kazim, in which analog and digital means blur into an illusion of their own. He also places “Katzelmacher” in such a nightmarish setting and traces the mechanisms of a disparate and racist society and its revenants in the present and future.
People who feel humiliated humiliate others in order to elevate themselves - what happens when this dynamic takes on a life of its own and penetrates through supposedly protective walls into the common spaces, into the most private rooms?

With Fassbinder’s “Katzelmacher” behind him and with a specially written epilogue, Emre Akal takes a hesitant look at our current society.

“The fact that the themes of ‘Katzelmacher’ are so timeless shows how important it is to keep renegotiating them. Every generation is confronted with its own versions of these social struggles. The question is: are we capable of creating something new with old tools?”
- Emre Akal, director

With Edmund Telgenkämper, Stefan Merki, Nadège Meta Kanku, Annika Neugart, Annette Paulmann, Leoni Schulz, Anja Signitzer

Directed by Emre Akal

Stage design & video animation Mehmet & Kazim Akal

Costumes Lara Roßwag

Musical direction, composition & sound design Enik

Lighting Design Wolfgang Eibert

Dramaturgy Hannah Baumann

Dramaturgy Preparation Anna Laner

Artistic Production Management Daniela Schroll

Technical Production Management Adrian Bette, Jonas Pim Simon

Sound Katharina Zorn, Ulrich Treutwein

Video Ikenna David Okegwo

Stage Master Marcel Homack

Assistant to the Director Constanze Nogueira Negwer

Stage Design Assistant Katharina Quandt

Costume Design Assistant Jacqueline Elaine Koch

Stage Manager Hanno Nehring

Prompter Daphne Chatzopoulos

Stage Design Intern Pia Frank

Costume Design Intern Lio Paltinger, Magdalena Eggeringhaus

Dramaturgy Intern Jonathan Frisch

Stage Management Intern Anran Xu

Surtitels Yvonne Griesel (SPRACHSPIEL)

Stage Machinery Florian Obermeier, Stephan Preusser

Signal box Michael Pohorsky

Lighting Tankred Friedrich, Sebastien Lachenmaier, Felix Adams, Yongwoo Kwon

Make Up Sofie Reindl-Grüger, Mai Strathmann, Raimund Richar-Vetter

Mask making cat heads Raimund Richar-Vetter, Sofie Reindl-Grüger

Costume Pavla Engelhardtova, Angelika Stingl, Nico Vanni, Jessica Watermann

Props Manuel Kößler, Daniel Bittner

Carpentry Stefan Klodt-Bussmann, Josef Piechatzek, Josef Friesl, Michael Buhl, Clemens Künneth, Hannes Zippert, Tobias Holland

Metalworker Friedrich Würzhuber, Jürgen Goudenhooft, Andreas Bacher

Decoration Tim Hagemeyer, Lisann Öttl, Anja Gebauer, Maria Hörger, Tobias Herzog

Scenic Painting Evi Eschenbach, Jeanette Raue, Jasmin Budde

Stage Sculpture Maximilian Biek