"Nico and the Navigators" at the Muffathalle At some point in Nicola Hümpel's life, she must have looked beyond the surface of the world around her. And she saw a horror. She saw fear and envy and resentment and a desperate clinging to a functioning that was understood as a seemingly necessary condition for survival. But now, at the same time, she came to the realization that, as an artistically inclined person who is struck by such horror, one would perhaps deprive oneself of a lasting effect precisely if one were to tear down the surface and place all the background naked on, let's say, a theater stage. Because with the loss of the surface surrounding us, the horror then exhibited would also be just any horror, in case of doubt one that would no longer have anything to do with the prevailing worlds of life. It is the time of over-clearness, and Ms. Hümpel is an anachronism. At the Kammerspiele, Hamlet reads Michael Moore; at the Gärtnerplatztheater, Butterfly finds herself in a cabaret of rotten everyday types; at the Residenztheater, East and West collide with Botho Strauß with the mystery of a barbecue. When theater becomes political in the broader sense, the text often becomes as unambiguous as the staging is straightforward. There is then no more room for secrets; the specific statement can be grasped in every conceivable psychological and physical state without restriction. But what lies completely clearly before the eye of the beholder often does not find access to the heart. And a brain without a heart has no pain. Since Nicola Hümpel founded the ensemble "Nico and the Navigators" in 1998, the whimsical undertakings of these behavioral physical theater animals have been seen all over the world, several times also in Munich, where the current production "Helden & Kleinmut" can still be seen today in the Muffathalle. At first glance, it looks like a relaxation seminar for stressed-out business bosses. The visual worlds of Hümpel and her set designer Oliver Proske are passage foyers of fragile people, carpentered with icy precision, whose self-assertion in style and pop would hardly leave a reflex on the retina, were they not all a bit strange. As pusillanimous heroes, they advertise a "life without death and dying" as if they were standing on the street corner with the watchtower. They extol the blessings of life insurance and play at disembodiment, self-loss and insanity. Actually, it would all look beautiful. The six actors are beautiful. The costumes are beautiful. The stage is beautiful. The music by two musicians and by band is beautiful. But the search for the self is in vain, it sticks like a lump in the throat of fear, and in the end only a rustling in the wind remains of the tender caution. The evening wanders along a fine line between the assertion of surface and what it conceals. Which side one wants to see, can see, is up to the viewer.

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