Press reviews

…the most original, innovative and melancholic but still funny troupe of the German off-theatre-community is playing on two evenings, each time in front of about 500 spellbound, almost enthusiastically reacting people in the audience… “Nico and the Navigators” are having so much specific within their language, thereby enlarging the language of theatre… The rest of the theatres in Germany could learn a lesson of how to support great contemporary art by experimenting with small means…

…Never give in to the need to finish something. – And indeed, the scenic fragmentation almost touches the genial. One is amazed, perplexed, enraptured, confused. But in the end – and often only in retrospect – all the dadaistic, anecdotal, dreamy, madcap things seem extremely plausible…

…Already at the beginning the seven actors, three women, four men, present themselves with slanted hairstyles and speaking mute facial expressions. There are echoes of parental or social education, attempts to nail the individual down to a certain direction in life, astrological banal promises…. The present performance is the most beautiful, the finest for a long time!…

… “Nico and the Navigators”: One of Germany’s most original theater groups becomes famous – Some discovered them late, others knew immediately, and all agree: A ghost is haunting Europe that needs no manifesto to be cult, and that goes by the name of Nico and the Navigators. It sounds like a pop band, but it’s a theater group, probably the best in Berlin’s independent scene and beyond…

…behavioral researcher seven people are sent into crazy positional games, fouled with standard situations and challenged to reactions. This goes via bending eye contacts, stomping dance interludes, stuttering body language or a cold pour of words…

…Die Regisseurin Nicola Hümpel, unterstützt von ihrem famosen Mitstreiter, dem Bühnenbildner Oliver Proske, ersinnt ein wundersam-surreales Bildertheater… Selten werden die alltäglichen Entscheidungsnöte von Thirtysomethings in der Multi-Options-Gesellschaft so umwerfend komisch dargestellt. „Die erste Entscheidung heißt, zu mir selbst, mutig, allein …“, so beginnt das Stück um die Lust und Last der Selbstbestimmung…