Ein politisches Theaterstück

They make a picture to treasure. The way they sit there. Heinz and Hertha. On the red sofa that is far too small. Good conversation and slight shock announce the pair at the start of the piece. Instead of this, spectators see bizarre insights into human unpredictability. The bourgeois in Germany. The political in private. The irony is followed by a brilliant conclusion, which offers a look into abysms.

»DIE IDIOTEN. das stück« (»THE IDIOTS. the piece«) is based on a cycle of his own texts, which Jo Fabian began to write in 1988, still in the time of the GDR. These are absurd events and exaggerated snapshots ranging between comical and tragic, grotesque and surreal. A type of East German time travel report reflects on the transfer into a new everyday life: Our Country – Foreign Country.

Jo Fabian, born in Berlin in 1960, founded his first free theatre group in 1989, with example dept. The pieces, »Whisky & Flags« and »Keine Gnade« (»No Mercy«) were invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen (Berlin theatre meeting) in 1994. In the same year, Fabian founded his own production company, DEPARTMENT Theater GmbH, and in 1999 he received the German producers’ prize for choreography. Meanwhile, Jo Fabian has had to dissolve his group due to cuts in subsidies and is now working on projects in the public arena.

»DIE IDIOTEN. das stück« is the only one of his stage pieces that can still be performed, and as such it also marks the end of a successful path in East German theatre. At the euro-scene Leipzig, Jo Fabian has also shown »Shite Samurai« (1991), »Whisky & Flags« (1994), »Pax Germania« (1997) and »tristan and isolde. nicht berühren« (2001).