Press reviews

The evening seems like a logical continuation, although the differences could hardly be greater. At the end of September, Nico and the Navigators sent Fabian Hinrichs to the Federal Press Conference Centre as the leader of a populist party called ‘Democratic Alliance’ and played out the possible consequences of such a man winning the election. The lie as a tried and tested means of political communication already appeared there in all conceivable manifestations; in ‘The whole Truth about Lies’, an eclectic and ecstatic evening of music theatre, it takes centre stage – with a wide cultural-historical focal range, but always with reference to the present… A clever, multi-layered evening well worth seeing.

Nico and the Navigators once again play a masterful game with the senses. In their new production, they interweave illusion, irony and postmodern narrative art to create a Gesamtkunstwerk that explores the boundaries of deception and truth. Between breathtaking (dance) acrobatics, sound collages and philosophical dialogues, the troupe makes the audience laugh, marvel – and pause for a moment. But where does the pretence end and the lie begin? An unforgettable evening that will captivate the audience and make them think.

From small untruths in private life to big lies on the political stage, the subject of lying inherently has a lot of negative potential. The fact that the evening still has a striking number of poetic moments is mainly due to an old illusion technique that Nico and the Navigators have unearthed […] When the performers lie on the floor and move, the vertical projection makes it look as if they are floating or flying through the air. It’s a dramaturgical trick that also holds up a mirror to the audience: we see ‘the lie’ and yet succumb to its visual appeal […] Will we go home with ‘The Whole Truth about Lies’? Perhaps not, but we will certainly have plenty of food for thought. 

The evening was characterised by the high artistic achievements, emotional resilience and unbridled enthusiasm of the entire ensemble, with which the concept of the ensemble director Nicola Hümpel, characterised by exuberant scenic imagination, was brought to the stage.

“Based on the seductive and disastrous fascination of the false, the ensemble goes in search of evidence of self-deception and heteronomy, white lies and fallacies in the dark depths of the classical heritage as well as on the glittering surface of contemporary music. The direction and artistic direction of this exciting production is in the hands of Nicola Hümpel.”